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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/22533205">What Is and What Shouldn't Be</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/BitterPill/pseuds/BitterPill'>BitterPill</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Avatar: The Last Airbender</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - Gender Changes, Canonical Character Death, Childhood Trauma, Female Sokka, Genderbending, Grief/Mourning, Hakoda (Avatar) is a Good Parent, How to deal with rigid gender roles, In more ways than one, Kanna is the best Gran-Gran, Misogyny, Multi, Sokka (Avatar)-centric, Southern Water Tribe, Transphobia, Water Tribe(s) (Avatar), What has a girl got to do to learn to fight around here?, and their tense relationship, eventually, what if Sokka was a girl, yue still dies I'm sorry</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-02-02</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-10-29</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-04-28 12:46:20</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>10</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>54,853</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/22533205</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/BitterPill/pseuds/BitterPill</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Sokka is a girl. This changes nothing. But it also sort of changes everything.</p><p>A story starting before canon and dipping in and out of the series to see what changes and what stays the same.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Katara &amp; Sokka (Avatar), Sokka &amp; The Gaang (Avatar), Sokka/Yue (Avatar)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>135</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>352</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Nice fics tbh, Non-Ship Fics of AtLA</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Chapter 1</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Sokka is now a gender-neutral name.</p><p>Also this is way more me delving into my own issues than I thought it would be so like, I hope you enjoy my therapy session.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Hakoda’s daughter has never really been… ladylike. She’s always been a bit boisterous and loud and a bit too willing to make herself heard. Hakoda would worry that she wouldn’t get on with the other girls her age, but there aren’t any in the village. At first he thought it was just how children were, but his second daughter put paid to that theory. Little Katara is much quieter and thoughtful, and she follows Sokka like she’s the one who hangs the sun in the sky.</p>
<p>It’s adorable. But also. Sometimes he did wish that Sokka was a little bit more like her sister.</p>
<p>Any time he got too lost in himself and actually voiced this thought, his wife would give him her Look, or a whack if he was close enough, and sagely tell him that all children are handfuls and as much annoying as they are gifts. And that if he wants to change their daughters, he’d have to go through her. He’d always agree, of course. He loves them dearly as they are.</p>
<p>But Kya wasn’t the one who would have to go about the village with a trail of daughters like penguin-ducklings behind her. And she didn’t have to face their pleading looks up at him when he would go on a hunt and have to leave them behind. It was practically emotional blackmail.</p>
<p>All of these thoughts and worries paled into nothing when the Fire Nation came.</p>
<p>It was devastation. The village in turmoil, he had a duty to them all as Chief. He had a duty to his daughters as Father, but he could not fulfil them both as he wanted to. The Tribe won out, because the Tribe and his daughters were one and the same. But he lost the children they were somewhere along the way.</p>
<p>He missed his trail of penguin-ducklings.</p>
<p>But Katara and Sokka had no time to follow him if they were to learn to run a household, as they suddenly had to.</p>
<p>How had Hakoda ever grown tired of Sokka’s loud mouth? He couldn’t help but berate himself as he became more and more unnerved by Sokka’s silence. His daughters drew closer together and he felt himself pushed away. Conversations would stop when he entered the tent. He trusts his mother, of course, but Kya would know, Kya would <em>tell him</em>.</p>
<p>It takes until one evening, over a meal the women of the family had cooked for them all.</p>
<p>Sokka pushes the food around her plate and Katara nudges her shoulder. “Tell him, Sokka,” she hisses.</p>
<p>Hakoda freezes and looks at them both. <em>Finally, yes, tell me</em>.</p>
<p>It takes a moment of silence before Sokka looks him in the eye. “Dad, I want to learn how to fight.” Her voice is so young.</p>
<p>“You’re just a child,” says Hakoda, his gut kicking in before any of his brain can.</p>
<p>“The Fire Nation doesn’t care about that!” Sokka says passionately, “I need to be able to protect the Tribe. To protect myself!”</p>
<p>Kanna is the only one still eating. And Hakoda can’t deny the truth in Sokka’s words (which was always really the most frustrating and inspiring thing about Sokka’s questions; they were often such childishly good points).</p>
<p>Hakoda takes a breath. “I will teach you how to defend yourself.”</p>
<p>Sokka looks amazed, and then gleeful, and she doesn’t even get annoyed at Katara’s little “See? I told you!”</p>
<p>Perhaps he shouldn’t feel a flood of warmth at promising to teach his seven-year-old daughter to fight, but Sokka is looking up at him with happy awe. Once again, he is her father, and therefore, he can fix everything. He has missed it.</p>
<p>Kanna says nothing against it so Hakoda rationalises that it can’t be that bad of a decision.</p>
<p>---</p>
<p>Self-defence turns into fishing, turns into hunting, turns into fighting.</p>
<p>Each time, she has her well-reasoned argument prepared for him. One more person who knows how to bring food in is good, that she can be back up if they don’t have enough men, that she’ll only go if she’s not needed in the village, that if she uses a boomerang she’ll never have to get up close to enemies anyway. Each time she makes her case over a meal with her sister and Kanna there. Each time, he cedes a little more ground.</p>
<p>Right up until she asks, “Can I train with the men?”</p>
<p>“No.” Hakoda means it to be an immediate answer, and final. But of course, Sokka already has all her reasons lined up.</p>
<p>“I’ll learn more if I have other people to fight against,” she says, “And it’ll free up your time because you wouldn’t have to train me alo—”</p>
<p>“I said no, Sokka!”</p>
<p>“Why not?” She immediately shoots back, a frown marring her features.</p>
<p>“Because you’re still a child,” Hakoda answers. Less a child than she used to be, but still, only eleven winters.</p>
<p>“But I won’t always be,” she says, “And the sooner I start, the better I’ll be when I’m an adult.”</p>
<p>And once she’s training with the men she’ll ask for more. She’ll ask to go out to fight, she’ll ask to be in the first line of defence, she’ll ask to lead the men into battle.</p>
<p>He can’t, he can’t put his little girl there. “No, Sokka.”</p>
<p>The air is tense with held breaths, until Sokka lets hers out. “Fine,” she snaps. “When will I be old enough?”</p>
<p>“What?” Hakoda asks.</p>
<p>“If I’m too young now, when will I be old enough?” she states again for him.</p>
<p>“No!” says Hakoda, which isn’t an answer, he <em>knows</em>, but all he can see is Kya’s face, dead on the floor of their family home and it’s so close to Sokka’s and he doesn’t want that for her, doesn’t want that for any of them. He won’t risk more of his family than he has to. “Stop pushing this, Sokka.”</p>
<p>Her mouth creases in a sneer. “You wouldn’t say no if I were a boy.”</p>
<p>Hakoda slams his hand down on his knee. “Even if you were a boy, you’d still be a child!”</p>
<p>Sokka snorts and gets to her feet. She takes a few steps, reconsiders, and comes back to pick up her food before she storms to the sleeping area to sit back down and eat.</p>
<p>Hakoda bristles at the childish disobedience. Every part of it just proving his point. “Sokka, you will eat with the rest of us!”</p>
<p>Sokka slams her bowl down on the floor and turns to him. “I caught this fish!” she points at the bowl, “And we cooked it,” she points at herself and Katara. “I can eat it wherever I want to!” She picks the bowl up again and turns her back to him.</p>
<p>Hakoda moves to stand up and Kanna coughs suddenly. He looks over at her and sees the way her lips are pressed together. It’s a look that says she’s not pleased. The catch in his breath at that look is from lessons learnt long before he was Chief, before he was a man.</p>
<p>His gaze moves to Katara, who is staring into her own bowl, tears silently rolling down her cheeks.</p>
<p>Hakoda relents, and settles back down. He starts to eat.</p>
<p>In the silence that follows, all he can hear over the sounds of eating are the wet sniffs and hitched breaths of his two daughters.</p>
<p>---</p>
<p>Sokka does not come to him to learn self-defence after that.</p>
<p>“Sorry, Dad,” she says, not looking him in the eye, “I’ve got to help with the kelp harvest.”</p>
<p>Hakoda can’t really say anything against that, because she does, of course. The Tribe comes before any individual and they’ve had to stop lessons before.</p>
<p>He feels hollow, though.</p>
<p>He misses his penguin-ducklings all the more.</p>
<p>He misses Kya.</p>
<p>But he needs insight, so he goes to Kanna.</p>
<p>“You could stop avoiding her for a start,” she says as sews together two pieces of material.</p>
<p>“I’m not—She’s avoiding <em>me</em>,” says Hakoda.</p>
<p>“Mm-hm,” says Kanna in time with in-out of the needle. “And I suppose you’ve been doing your level best to talk to her?”</p>
<p>“I’ve been trying to teach her to fight, but she keeps refusing. I thought that was what she wanted!” Even as he says it, he knows how weak it sounds.</p>
<p>Kanna stops sewing, looks up at him and fixes him with a stare. “Remind me again, which of you is the child?”</p>
<p>Hakoda is affronted for a moment before he gets over himself and sighs. “Kya would have known what to do.”</p>
<p>Kanna shakes her head. “She would have struggled without you, just as you struggle without her.”</p>
<p>Hakoda doesn’t entirely believe that. “I need her.” His eyes sting and he feels so foolish. She’s been gone for years but he’s still struggling to raise their children. Their children who are growing up without her, and she’ll never get to know them, and they have come to know they world without her.</p>
<p>His heart hurts.</p>
<p>Kanna reaches over and cups his cheek. “We all miss her. There’s no shame in that.”</p>
<p>Hakoda nods, and thumbs the excess water from his eyes. “Thank you, Mama.”</p>
<p>She runs her hand over his beard. “Go talk to your daughter.”</p>
<p>Once he is more composed, he does go find his daughter. He finds both of them outside. Sokka caring for her weapons, and Katara practicing what little waterbending she’s able to do. They look much the same as they always do; both bundled into their parkas. Katara’s hair is as neatly done as ever, while Sokka’s is, as ever, less so, pulled back into a simple tail to keep it out of her face.</p>
<p>“Sokka, can I speak with you?” he asks.</p>
<p>Sokka looks up at him. “Yeah, Dad, what do you want?”</p>
<p>“I want—” it’s then he realises that he doesn’t really know what he needs to say to say to her. “I want you to stop avoiding me,” he says.</p>
<p>“Oh,” Sokka runs the whetstone across her spear. “Okay.”</p>
<p>Hakoda is pleasantly surprised, and then immediately suspicious. “’Okay’ you’ll stop avoiding me?” he clarifies.</p>
<p>“I’m not avoiding you,” Sokka insists.</p>
<p>Katara is not part of this conversation, but she is very clearly present, sitting a little to the side with a wobbly orb of water struggling to stay in front of her.</p>
<p>Hakoda lets out a disbelieving laugh. “You’ve turned down all of my offers to teach you.”</p>
<p>Sokka shrugs one shoulder. “You don’t want me to fight, so what good is learning to fight from you?”</p>
<p>“I never said I didn’t want you to learn,” Hakoda explains. “Just… the men are strong,” he treads carefully, “and you… you could get hurt.”</p>
<p>Sokka snorts and folds her arms. “Well, when the Fire Nation comes I’ll be sure to tell them my Dad doesn’t want me hurt.”</p>
<p>“You don’t… It’s not your place…” He pauses to consider his words. “I want you to have a childhood.”</p>
<p>“Dad, that ship’s sailed,” says Sokka with all the certainty of a pre-teen.</p>
<p>“What?”</p>
<p>“We haven’t had…” Sokka’s bravado breaks and she looks down at the floor, shrugging again. “It all changed, you know, when, when Mom…”</p>
<p>“I know,” says Hakoda, “I miss her too.”</p>
<p>“No,” Sokka shakes her head, “That’s not what I mean. Well, I do, y’know, m-miss her, but, I mean, we’ve,” she looks at Katara, who’s let the water sink back into the snow, “We’ve been doing everything she used to do, haven’t we?”</p>
<p>Hakoda narrows his eyes, trying to find his daughter’s point. “Doing chores doesn’t make you an adult.”</p>
<p>Sokka’s eyeroll is impressive. “That’s not what I mean. Or, that’s not the only thing. It’s everything else, too.”</p>
<p>“Like what?”</p>
<p>“Like food, and defence, in case the Fire Nation comes back.”</p>
<p>Hakoda puts a hand on her shoulder. “It’s my job to worry about those things. You don’t have to.”</p>
<p>“But we do,” says Katara, hands on her hips, the picture of a miniature Kya. “We still worry, even if you say we shouldn’t.”</p>
<p>Hakoda closes his eyes for a moment. “And learning to fight is what helps you worry less?” he asks Sokka, who nods. “I <em>will</em> teach you, Sokka, properly.”</p>
<p>“And let her join the men when she’s older,” Katara demands, “It’s not fair if you only won’t let her because she’s a girl.”</p>
<p>“That’s… true,” he grudgingly admits.</p>
<p>“So you will?” asks Sokka, all hope.</p>
<p>“Yes,” says Hakoda slowly, under Katara’s watchful eye, feeling tricked into it all but unable to refuse without feeling like twice the ass he already does. “<em>If</em> you improve enough.”</p>
<p>“Yeah,” Sokka agrees, “Yeah, of course!”</p>
<p>Katara nods with satisfaction and removes her hands from her hips to start coaxing the water up again.</p>
<p>Hakoda can’t stay with them, it’s jackal-yak season and there’s a hunt to prepare. But still, he feels better about it. He hasn’t given in <em>entirely</em>.</p>
<p>---</p>
<p>Once Hakoda returns from the hunt, it becomes apparent that he and Sokka still aren’t seeing eye-to-eye.</p>
<p>“Your Sokka’s been watching us train,” Mugaluk tells him.</p>
<p>“Has she?” Hakoda asks lightly, but internally his suspicions are rising.</p>
<p>“Yes, she’s really improved with the spear since I last saw her with it.”</p>
<p>“Has she.” That girl.</p>
<p>Mugaluk is older (though not yet an Elder, he’d say) and has daughters of his own, grown now and settled. He grins at Hakoda. “She’s testing you.”</p>
<p>“That’s one word for it.” Hakoda looks over at their small home.</p>
<p>Mugaluk looks over too. “She wants to do everything she can for the Tribe. Can you say you wanted any less at her age?”</p>
<p>“No, of course not, but I—” his words die in his throat. Strangled like the dreams he’d had for his children to live happily in a thriving Tribe.</p>
<p>“You…?” Mugaluk watches him expectantly.</p>
<p>“I never wanted her to fight. I want her to be safe.”</p>
<p>“That’s not really up to you,” says Mugaluk, prompting Hakoda to look at him. “Either the war will come back here, or it won’t. And she’ll be prepared for it, or she won’t. The ice does not coddle us, Hakoda, it teaches us to use what we have. It is up to us to learn that lesson.”</p>
<p>Hakoda thinks on Mugaluk’s words, and then sighs. “Is this your long-winded way of saying I’m an ass?”</p>
<p>Mugaluk laughs. “I would never call you such a thing.” He claps Hakoda on the shoulder, “Sokka might, though.”</p>
<p>“I’m sure she will, one day. Thank you for your wisdom, Mugaluk. I mean that,” he adds on the end, knowing he sounded less than sincere.</p>
<p>“Mm-hmm,” Mugaluk agrees, “I have no son to waste it on, so I may as well give it to you.” He gives Hakoda’s shoulder another squeeze and moves off.</p>
<p>---</p>
<p>Hakoda doesn’t get the chance to speak with his family, not properly, until after the great hunt feast. The celebrations last until the spirit lights snake their way across the skies. One jackal-yak is cooked to feed the whole village, and they all eat well. They will eat well for the next week, cutting up and curing what they can of the catch, eating whatever can’t be kept.</p>
<p>It is a good night, and the village gathers around the fire to sing and dance. To celebrate the life that they work from the deathly ice of the tundra. Katara shows her shaky waterbending to great, drunken enthusiasm. Sokka tries, and fails, to get some of the drunkenness for herself.</p>
<p>All in all, the night ends with the lot of them piling into their beds, happy and sated.</p>
<p>The village is a flurry of activity the next day, such that Hakoda barely sees his daughters until the evening around their own family fire and family meal.</p>
<p>“I hear you’ve been watching the men train,” says Hakoda.</p>
<p>The immediate tension in his whole family makes Hakoda want to take it back.</p>
<p>“I’m not allowed to even watch now?” says Sokka through a mouthful. Hakoda would chide her but, one thing at a time.</p>
<p>“No, that’s not what I was going to say.”</p>
<p>Sokka ignores him. “It’s not like they’re hidden away. Should I close my eyes when I walk past?”</p>
<p>Hakoda sighs. “Sokka, can we not?”</p>
<p>Sokka leans forward and points at him. “Maybe <em>you</em> can not.”</p>
<p>“What?” Hakoda asks.</p>
<p>“You can <em>both</em> not!” says Katara. “I’m sick of these arguments at dinner. You can have them another time!”</p>
<p>“Sorry Katara,” says Sokka, returning to her usual sitting position.</p>
<p>Katara turns her glare on Hakoda, expecting an apology from him as well? He refuses to be cowed by his daughter but, “You’re right, Katara, we can discuss this another time.”</p>
<p>Katara nods, like the world has returned to rights.</p>
<p>“Thank you for cooking this meal,” Hakoda adds.</p>
<p>“You’re welcome,” says Sokka petulantly.</p>
<p>“Sokka!” Katara snaps.</p>
<p>Sokka purses her lips, then takes a deep breath and lets it out. “Sorry,” she says again and returns to her food like a properly chided child.</p>
<p>“You’re welcome, Dad,” says Katara kindly. “I’m glad we can all enjoy it together.” She aims another sharp look at her sister, but Sokka is pointedly not paying attention.</p>
<p>---</p>
<p>Hakoda doesn’t get the chance to speak to Sokka the next morning as she is already up and gone. Hakoda would commend her commitment if it weren’t to something so frustrating.</p>
<p>She is nowhere to be found, not that Hakoda tries all that hard; he has things to be doing. And at any rate, he suspects she’ll show her face at training.</p>
<p>Committed to frustrating her father, that’s Sokka.</p>
<p>For a while, Hakoda thinks he got it wrong, when there is no one on the snowbank watching them train.</p>
<p>For a moment, Hakoda is utterly confused when there is a small kerfuffle caused by a young boy he has never seen before trying to join in.</p>
<p>The next moment freezes in horror when he sees that it is not a young boy, but his Sokka, her hair hacked away and bleeding where she clearly let the blade too close to her scalp.</p>
<p>“Sokka…” he lets out on a choked breath.</p>
<p>“Come on!” She waves her spear around erratically and the other men step back, to let the father deal with his errant daughter. They are all watching, and their gazes feel sharp, he has heard the murmurs that he already lets her get away with too much.</p>
<p>“Sokka,” he says again.</p>
<p>Sokka hits the ground with the butt of her spear. “What, are you all scared of me? Scared of a <em>girl</em>?” Her laugh is not happy and tears shine in her eyes.</p>
<p>“Sokka!” Hakoda says sharply.</p>
<p>Sokka whirls to face him and points the spear directly at him. “Fight me!”</p>
<p>A mixture of emotions roll up in him, more than he can identify. Sadness and hurt, certainly, a fine layer of embarrassment over it all. The maelstrom is overcome by a wave of anger, that she is defying him, that she didn’t trust him, that she is disregarding all safety that he has taught her.</p>
<p>“Sokka!” he steps forward and grabs the shaft of the spear, pushing the blade to the side. “You do not point a sharpened weapon at someone you do not want to hurt!”</p>
<p>If any regret was evident on her face, Hakoda blinked and missed it.</p>
<p>“Fight me!” she cries again, trying to pull the spear out of his grip.</p>
<p>With a sharp tug her hands are left grasping air. She’s wrong-footed for a moment, without her spear, then she reaches behind her and Hakoda realises she has her boomerang on her as well.</p>
<p>He’s starting to think he was wrong to ever teach her how to use weapons.</p>
<p>She raises the boomerang up as if to throw it, but thinks better of it. “I <em>will</em> be a warrior!”</p>
<p>A noise from the surrounding men that might’ve been a cough, might’ve been a chuckle, makes Sokka spin to see who the offender was. “You <em>will</em> take me seriously!” Looking around at the impassive faces, she eventually yells in frustrated anger and throws the boomerang at the ground. It sticks in the ice, standing on its end.</p>
<p>“Sokka, you are a child.”</p>
<p>Sokka turns on him, a face of fury and tears overflowing down her cheeks. “I haven’t been a child since Mom died!”</p>
<p>He thought everyone was quiet before, now they are silent as the dead. Hakoda’s anger surges forward to meet his daughter’s. “We are not having this conversation here.” He snatches her wrist up and storms towards their home.</p>
<p>“No!” Sokka shrieks. “I deserve to be out here!” she resists his pulling and hits at his arm, but he will only feel the bruises later. “I will protect the Tribe with everything I have!”</p>
<p>Hakoda ignores her and pulls her into their tent. He lets her go once they’re in there and blocks the only way out with his body. “What are you doing, Sokka? Your hair!”</p>
<p>“Maybe if I look like a boy, you’ll treat me with some respect,” she spits back at him.</p>
<p>“Your mother always loved—”</p>
<p>“Mom’s dead, Dad! Mom’s dead and the Fire Nation could come back any moment, and what do you want me to do when they do, huh? Cook them a nice meal? Shall I fix their clothes?”</p>
<p>“Don’t be stupid,” Hakoda dismisses.</p>
<p>“Then what, Dad? I can’t stand aside and watch it all happen again! I don’t want to be useless anymore!”</p>
<p>“Sokka, what? You’re not useless.”</p>
<p>“Mom died, and Katara was there, and I couldn’t do anything. They came into our homes and took what they wanted and I was, I was so <em>useless</em>.” The devastation on her face takes him back years. That feeling, he could’ve done <em>more</em>. If only he’d been quicker... “When they come back, I have to be better. I have to be better, Dad.” She runs her hands through the mess of her hair, looking at her wit’s end. And Sokka has always had so much wit. “I can’t, I can’t let them tear us apart again. I can’t just watch it happen.”</p>
<p>“Sokka, you don’t…” Hakoda reaches out a hand to her, but she doesn’t reach back. “You shouldn’t have to think about that.”</p>
<p>Sokka lets out a frustrated scream and rubs at her temples before gesturing angrily along with her words. “There shouldn’t be a war! The fire nation shouldn’t attack us! Katara shouldn’t be the only waterbender! It doesn’t matter what <em>should</em> happen, it matters what <em>does</em> happen.” She grabs hold of Hakoda’s sleeves and he barely stops himself from backing away. He’s never seen her with such anger and frustration. He doesn’t want to believe, his little girl… “I need to be better. Dad, please! I need you. I need you to teach me. I will beg you if I have to.” She falls to her knees, still clinging to his sleeves. “Dad,”</p>
<p>“Sokka, no.” A wave of revulsion rises up in him like nausea. His daughter, his wilful, intelligent daughter with her sharp eyes and sharper tongue and goofy laugh. His Sokka is begging him with tears in her eyes, and he feels sick. “You don’t have to… Get up, you don’t need to beg.” He pulls her up by the arm he used to drag her in here in the first place and the cold horror in his heart grows. “I’m, I’m sorry. This is all wrong. I’ve been doing this all wrong.” He falls to his knees, bringing him to her level. “I’ve been… I’m so sorry, Sokka. I didn’t see how much you were hurting.” He reaches for her. “I never wanted this for you, for you or your sister.”</p>
<p>Sokka resists being pulled into a hug, stepping back from his grip. “But will you teach me?” Her voice is rough and small. Resigned, he realises, that he will say no.</p>
<p>Every step of the way he has pushed back. All these years she has felt this way, felt useless, felt scared that the Fire Nation would come back. All these years he has tried to keep her that way, made her justify again and again why she should be allowed to feel useful. The enormity of what he has been doing, blinded by his own grief and fear, opens up like the ice sheet cracking in two beneath him.</p>
<p>“Of <em>course</em> I will,” he says, his own tears finally slipping down his cheeks. “Of course I will, my little warrior. I’ll teach you how to defend this Tribe and this family. You were never useless. A spirit like yours could never be useless. I’ve let you down. I’ll talk to the men tomorrow, I promise.” Renown for his skill with speech, Hakoda starts babbling every promise and reassurance he can think of to make her believe. To make her show that he <em>knows</em>. He knows what he has done and he is so, so sorry.</p>
<p>Sokka gives a broken cry of, “Dad,” and goes to him, hugging him and pressing her face into his shoulder. Whatever else Hakoda was going to say is lost to sobs.</p>
<p>The tent flap opens and Katara rushes in, already crying, and hits them both with the full force of her hug. Kanna enters last, fastens the tent behind her and smiles at them with shining eyes.</p>
<p>“How long, how long were you out there?” Hakoda asks.</p>
<p>“Long enough,” Kanna replies. “I’ll make us all some tea.”</p>
<p>---</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Later, when the girls are in bed, exhausted after their emotional day (and to be honest, so is he), Hakoda sits with his mother at the fire. “I am glad that you were able to have that talk,” she says, “It’s been a long time coming.”</p>
<p>Hakoda sighs heavily and leans on his hand. “I should have done it before she cut off her hair.”</p>
<p>Kanna’s shoulder rises in a small shrug. “Hair grows back.” Then she turns to him. With a single look, lit only by the embers of the fire, she manages to convey the sense of an old, but very dangerous mother bear-wolf. “If you go back on your word now, you will lose her. Do not take anything you have said lightly.”</p>
<p>“I know, I know,” says Hakoda.</p>
<p>“I can only ask her to give you so many chances,” Says Kanna.</p>
<p>Hakoda shoots her a look of betrayal. He doesn’t mean for her aging eyes to catch it in the darkness, but she does. Or else, she knows him well enough.</p>
<p>“I didn’t travel an entire world from the Northern Tribe on a whim. I am here by choice. We are all, in the end, here by choice. Different choices can always be made.”</p>
<p>He often forgot his mother wasn’t born in the South, she fit in so well, after all. Or the Southern Tribe fit around her so well. Ultimately, it’s a backbone of steel she brought with her and has passed to all in their family. For better or worse, that won’t be changed.</p>
<p>He stares into the embers and thinks of Kya, telling him to not dare change their children.</p>
<p>---</p>
<p>The next morning, Hakoda sits Sokka down and runs his hand through her battered hair.</p>
<p>“Right, let’s sort this out.” It is… incredibly uneven. Cut to the scalp in some places, and nearly chin length in others.</p>
<p>Sokka hisses slightly when his fingers run over the deepest cuts and nicks she made in her own head.</p>
<p>“What did you do?” he says, mainly to himself.</p>
<p>Sokka answers anyway. “I started from underneath.”</p>
<p>“You started with the hardest part. Of course you did.” Trust Sokka to start with the hardest part first. Hakoda combs the bedhead out of her hair.</p>
<p>“Does it look terrible?” she asks, anxious in a way Hakoda has never seen about her hair. She used to hate having her hair done. Kya could only give her the simplest styles or else Sokka’s impatience would wiggle her out of the home with only half-done hair. Sokka only sat for Katara to play with her hair when she was feeling <em>very</em> generous.</p>
<p>“Yes, it does,” Hakoda answers truthfully. “But I think I can make something of it. What were you going for?”</p>
<p>“Short,” Sokka answers with a shrug.</p>
<p>“Mmm.” Hakoda reaches for his razor. “I think we could manage a woftail. For now. Does that soun—”</p>
<p>“—Yeah sounds great!”</p>
<p>Hakoda is surprised by her enthusiasm. But her smile is infectious. “Well, I’ll shave most of your head then. I think that’s the best way to get it even.” He ties the top section of her hair, which will stay longer, up and away from his razor. “Will you want to keep it short?”</p>
<p>Sokka snaps her head towards him so quickly, Hakoda has a small heart attack. Thankfully she doesn’t stab herself on the razor he was holding far too close to her skin for sudden movements. “You’ll let me keep it short?” she asks like he’s just announced they have enough jerky to build a house out of it (not like she just came far too close to missing an ear).</p>
<p>“If you want to keep it short,” says Hakoda.</p>
<p>“Yes! Yes I do!” Sokka confirms.</p>
<p>“Well then.” He turns her head to face forward again. “Keep still. I’ll do it now. But I’ll have to teach you how to do it yourself. And we’ll make you your own razor.”</p>
<p>“Thanks, Dad,” says Sokka, with a suspiciously watery waver to her voice.</p>
<p>Hakoda spares a moment to squeeze her shoulder before he returns to his important task of running a sharp blade very close to his daughter’s skin.</p>
<p>By the time Hakoda is finished, it looks… better. Where Sokka cut herself is now incredibly obvious, but the shaved section is mostly even. It’s on the top that some isn’t long enough to stay in the tail and it ruins the sharp line between shaven and unshaven. He tries to tuck it under the rest of the hair, but it just falls free again.</p>
<p>Sensing that he has finished, Sokka’s hands come up and rub over her newly-shaved head.</p>
<p>While Hakoda will only be proud of his work once it’s had a chance to grow out and neaten up, he is immensely proud that Sokka can’t seem to do anything but grin.</p>
<p>Sokka spins around. “Katara!” she calls to her sister, who is doing chores. “What do you think?”</p>
<p>Katara runs a critical eye over Sokka’s new style. “It’s… neater than it was.”</p>
<p>“Yeah, it’s awesome!” Sokka gushes.</p>
<p>“I’m glad you like it,” says Hakoda. “Now, I have to go talk to the men about your training. It is still up to them if they will accept you among them, but I promise you,” he kneels down to her level. “I promise you that I will do everything in my power to persuade them.”</p>
<p>---</p>
<p>Hakoda approaches the men, gathered in their usual place. But rather than getting ready for the day, they are gathered in a loose circle, talking. Hakoda’s apprehension rises. He’s never felt like this in front the men. Nervous, yes. Uncertainty, sometimes. And it’s been many years and youthful mishaps since he’s been reluctant to face them.</p>
<p>But today he can’t help but feel his relationship with his daughter is in their hands. He is unnerved to find he doesn’t entirely trust them with it. He almost ruined it for himself, how can he expect all of them to understand?</p>
<p>Before he can lose his heart altogether, Bato steps away from the group towards him. “Hakoda!” he greets and then pulls Hakoda into a hug.</p>
<p>Hakoda clasps at him a moment before Bato pulls away. “When you never came back, we were worried Sokka might have taken you out!” he says. A light chuckle runs through the group, but Hakoda’s demeanour drops further.</p>
<p>He swallows. “About Sokka,”</p>
<p>“Listen,” Bato interrupts and steers him by the shoulder towards the other men. “We have a proposal for you, and we’d like you to hear us out before you speak.”</p>
<p>Hakoda looks at his old friend, really looks at him. He seems pleased with himself, and Hakoda uses that, uses his faith in his friend to give himself the strength to say, “Alright. I’ll hear what you have to say.”</p>
<p>“Excellent.” Mugaluk steps forward into the centre of the loose circle. “Hakoda, we have discussed this and… to put it plainly, we were impressed with Sokka’s drive. We were moved by her desire to protect the tribe, as do we all, and we feel for her being barred from it. Something none of us, thankfully, have much experience of.</p>
<p>He continues, “Hakoda, I hope that you will fully consider this idea, though it may seem drastic. We propose that she become an honorary man. Well, boy, at her age. We will let her join our training, hunts and so on, full time, and she will stop engaging with the women’s work. It will be as though you have a son.”</p>
<p>Hakoda looks around at the men, speechless. Some of these men were against him teaching Sokka even self-defense. But now they are offering a solution for her. Hakoda rubs his eyes.</p>
<p>Bato pulls him in closer. “What are you thinking?”</p>
<p>“I’ll have to ask Sokka if she’ll accept it,” Hakoda answers honestly.</p>
<p>“And we will have to ask the women if they are willing to give up another pair of hands,” one of the more conservative men offers.</p>
<p>Kanna is well-respected. Hakoda doesn’t expect to have too much push back from the women.</p>
<p>“She is a strong-willed girl. She will make a good warrior if you allow it,” the same man says.</p>
<p>Hakoda laughs as tears break free of his eyes. “She’ll become one whether I allow it or not.” If he’s learnt nothing else over his years of trying to slow Sokka down, ultimately what made him most scared was the knowledge that she would eventually do it all anyway.</p>
<p>Bato laughs, squeezing his shoulders again, “Stubbornness? In <em>your</em> family?”</p>
<p>Mugaluk comes forward and clasps Hakoda’s forearm. “There is no shame in letting your children grow.”</p>
<p>Hakoda looks at him with wet eyes. “I am more shamed that I have been trying to stop it.”</p>
<p>“Then there is no shame in admitting you were wrong.”</p>
<p>Hakoda wipes at his eyes again, and then men press in closer, patting his back and murmuring support. Someone pushes a cup into his hand and he drinks, and they all drink, to the ones they have lost, and to the future.</p>
<p>---</p>
<p>Sokka cannot stop grinning as she returns to her home. From today she is officially a man, able to do everything a man does and take on the responsibilities of a man. She sets her boomerang in its usual place in their home, but now it is <em>hers</em>. Not her father’s on indefinite loan to her. Her spear is hers. Her life is hers.</p>
<p>Her loyalty is to the Tribe and her family, always. But she will be so much better now she can do what she is good at.</p>
<p>Katara and Gran-Gran are cooking. Sokka has arrived too late to help with it. It is not her responsibility anymore, and Gran-Gran does not admonish her for missing it.</p>
<p>Katara, however, has a fantastic pout going as she stirs the stew. She watches Sokka stretch with a critical eye, taking in the new, less fitted parka and baggier trousers. “So you’re my brother now?” she asks with a disparaging tone.</p>
<p>Sokka grins lopsidedly. “Only out there. In here I’m still your sister.”</p>
<p>“With shorter hair,” says Katara, still not pleased with that development.</p>
<p>“At least you won’t roll onto it in your sleep anymore,” says Sokka.</p>
<p>Katara sticks her tongue out. “Served you right for not tying it up properly.”</p>
<p>“Well, that’s not a problem now.” Sokka tugs on her wolftail. The action dislodges a some of the shorter parts, but it mostly stays up. Enough to prove her point, anyway. She struts cockily to the cooking pot. “So, what have you women been cooking?”</p>
<p>“Sokka,” Gran-Gran cuts in, “Don’t wind your sister up. This is a day for celebration.”</p>
<p>“Sorry, Gran-Gran,” says Sokka, a little less cocky. “Is it nearly ready though?”</p>
<p>Katara shoots her a sharp look.</p>
<p>“It looks like it is,” Sokka adds as a peace offering.</p>
<p>Katara sighs. “Yeah, nearly. Fetch the bowls.”</p>
<p>Sokka does and crowds up beside the pot with them, eager as ever to be fed.</p>
<p>Katara looks at Sokka. “You think you’ll be happier now?” she asks quietly.</p>
<p>“Yeah,” says Sokka with the smile that hasn’t left her face since she arrived. “Yeah, I really do.”</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Chapter 2</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>It's a very eventful couple of days in the Southern Water Tribe. Definitely the most eventful since the men left.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“I knew I shouldn’t have let you come with me,” says Sokka, climbing to her feet on the small iceberg they are now stranded on in the middle of the very cold sea (is there any other kind of sea?).</p><p>“Excuse me?!” says Katara, outraged, “<em>Let</em> me come with you?”</p><p>“Yeah,” says Sokka. She’s still got the paddle but the iceberg doesn’t look small enough to be paddled back to shore. “Your water magic is <em>fine</em> for soaking me, but when you need to stop a canoe that’s on nothing but water...”</p><p>“You’re blaming <em>me?”</em> Katara’s voice squeaks in outrage. “Maybe if you’d been paying attention to where we were going—”</p><p>“—The ice cold seawater distracted me <em>just a little</em>. If you could actually do something useful with it rather than—”</p><p>“Useful? <em>Useful?!</em>” Katara’s voice reaches an impressive pitch that successfully overcomes Sokka’s argument. “That’s rich coming from you. You stopped doing anything useful the moment you ‘became a man’.” She waves her arms wildly in anger. “Ever since then, <em>I’ve</em> done the cooking, <em>I’ve</em> fixed your clothes, <em>I’ve</em> done the laundry –“</p><p>“Katara,”</p><p>“-- Do you know how bad your dirty clothes <em>smell?</em> And what, so you can play warrior? I’ve never met anyone so <em>selfish,</em> so –”</p><p>“Katara! Watch what you’re doing!”</p><p>The ice beneath their feet rolls suddenly and Katara stumbles into Sokka’s grasp, who pulls her down to ride the wave out. The larger iceberg that was behind Katara cracks apart and falls into the ocean, sending their little floe bobbing and bucking.</p><p>“Did I do that?” Katara asks.</p><p>Sokka doesn’t bother to answer, and just stabs her spear into the ice to give something to hold onto.</p><p>The ice takes a while to shift and resettle in the water and once it does… Well, long story short, they find the last airbender.</p><p>---</p><p>The smoke of the Fire Nation signal is still hanging in the air as Katara and Aang trudge back into view from the direction of the very out-of-bounds old warship . Katara’s head is bowed in rightful shame and Aang looks worried, like one of the kids when they accidentally take a gouge out of Sokka’s (lovingly constructed) village wall.</p><p>Sokka has to banish that thought from her mind, otherwise she’ll feel bad for banishing Aang the airbending Fire Nation spy (that… doesn’t sound quite right, but there’s a war out there and who knows what’s going on out in the world? The men can’t even get a message back to them and it’s not like there’s anyone else in the world who cares enough to).</p><p>Sokka stands at the front of the Tribe, spear in hand, waiting for the sorry pair to reach them. “Katara, do you know what you’ve done?” Sokka demands.</p><p>“Sokka, it was an accident, I swear!”</p><p>“You accidently got into the old Fire Nation ship?” Sokka asks sarcastically. “You know that’s forbidden!”</p><p>“We accidentally set off a trap, but we were only looking!” Katara pleads.</p><p>“Katara,” Gran-Gran says harshly, “Listen to your brother, you know you should never have set foot on that ship.”</p><p>Katara hangs her head again. “I do know, I’m sorry.”</p><p>“It’s not her fault,” Aang tries to defend, “It was mine, I persuaded her to go on there.”</p><p>Sokka levels her spear at him, which shuts him up nice and quick. “Quiet, you Fire Nation spy, we’ll not have any more of your lies.”</p><p>Katara pushes Sokka’s spear aside. “Don’t treat Aang like that. He’s not lying, and he’s not Fire Nation!”</p><p>“That’s twice!” Sokka holds up two fingers (it doesn’t really work, her gloves only have two fingers) “Twice that he’s signalled the Fire Nation. They could be on their way right now!”</p><p>“He didn’t—” Katara huffs in frustration, “It was an accident!”</p><p>“Either way, the result’s the same.” Sokka turns her angry look on the young boy in orange and yellow and he quails beneath it (he’s a danger, a risk that they can’t take!). “The foreigner did not respect our rules and has brought danger to us. He is banished from the Tribe!”</p><p>“Sokka, no!” Katara grabs Sokka’s arm. “Sokka, he’s the only bender I’ve ever met—”</p><p>(Not the only bender. Sokka remembers the flashes of fire, the heat chasing her as she ran from the invaders.)</p><p>“—I could learn so much from him!”</p><p>Sokka pulls her arm out of Katara’s grasp. “No, Katara. He might look cute, but he’s dangerous, like a tiger-seal pup. You have your whole life to learn bending, you can learn it from someone who isn’t so…” Sokka flaps her hand in the boy’s direction. It’s hard to think of a good word to describe him when he’s looking at her with those big sorrowful eyes (just like a tiger-seal pup).</p><p>Katara doesn’t wait for him to find a suitable word. “I have to wait? Just like you waited to learn how to fight?”</p><p>“That’s different—”</p><p>“No, Sokka!” Katara interrupts, “It’s exactly the same!” Katara is angry, and Sokka is a bit of an expert at winding up Katara so she’s seen Katara angry many times. She’s seen Katara angry at the state of the world, like she is now, but Sokka’s never had that anger directed wholly at her. Katara’s angry glare bores into Sokka as she snatches up the foreigner’s hand. “Aang’s going to take me to the Northern Water Tribe and I’m going to learn how to waterbend.”</p><p>She turns and drags said (confused) foreigner towards his ridiculous beast.</p><p>“Katara get back here!” Sokka calls after her sister.</p><p>Katara does not. She carries on marching and Sokka’s stomach drops into her feet, because Katara is wilful, and Katara wants more than the Tribe can give, and Katara is – against all odds – not afraid of the world out there.</p><p>“Katara!” Sokka calls again, the panic showing through. “You can’t- You’re not really going to leave us, are you? We’re your family, your Tribe.”</p><p>That makes Katara pause, and the airbender says something to her. Sokka holds her breath as Katara and the foreigner come to a decision. Finally, Katara’s shoulders slump and she turns back. She gives the foreigner a hug and a fond farewell, but it’s alright, because Sokka can breathe again and Katara’s not going to leave.</p><p>---</p><p>Sokka’s relief is short lived, because now she has to set watch and be ready for whatever might come. She’s got to keep her promise to Dad and protect the village. Protect everyone in it. It never seemed such a daunting prospect when the men were heading off into to danger and she had been given exercises to keep up her training.</p><p>But it’s been years now and the men haven’t come back, and waving her weapons around with the five-year-olds barely feels like training; she knows she hasn’t improved in too long.</p><p>Little Tota is waiting by the weapons rack, a club in his hands. He’s the oldest of the kids at seven years. He’s too young to remember the last raid, but plenty old enough to understand everyone’s fear. He’s by the rack with his club, looking fearful and determined.</p><p>“What do you need me to do?” he asks, a waver in his voice.</p><p>For the first time, Sokka thinks she knows what her dad meant all those times when he said that she was just a child. That she shouldn’t have to worry about this. Tota shouldn’t have to worry about protecting the village. The village should never have been left with just Sokka as protection, what can she do against the Fire Nation? The full strength of the men couldn’t protect Mom, how will Sokka ever live up to—</p><p>Sokka takes a deep breath and kneels in front of Tota. She takes him by the shoulders. “I need you to go with your Mom and look after her, alright?” she says, “Protect her if you have to, but your most important mission today is to stay out of trouble and not get hurt. You’ll be a strong, brave warrior when you grow up, but let me handle this today, okay?”</p><p>Tota nods, looking relieved more than anything.</p><p>Yeah, Sokka would like it if someone came and told her they were going to deal with this for her, too. “Good man,” she says instead. She stands and pats him on the back. “Now go find your mom, you’ll be fine.”</p><p>Tota runs to the tent flap, then turns back and tells Sokka, “Show no fear.”</p><p>Sokka nods. “You got it.”</p><p>Show no fear. Don’t back down. Show the Fire Nation they’re not dead yet.</p><p>Things the men used to say that are coming back all too clearly. But they’re right enough. She can’t afford fear. Everyone else will be scared enough. She will do what she has to do for them. She will make the Fire Nation know the bite of the arctic wolves.</p><p>She prepares herself. A warrior’s outfit for easier movement (she never had anything like armour made for her, and if she had she would have grown out of it by now). She paints her face in lines shown to her by her father, that she can’t remember the meaning of, but she’s practiced them (no helmet, for the same reason as the rest of the armour).</p><p>As ready as she could possibly be, Sokka makes her way up to the top of the village wall to watch and wait.</p><p>Nothing might happen. No one might come. She knows these are possibilities. Aang was in an iceberg, what firebender could make that happen? It probably was an accident. The likelihood that a Fire Nation would be patrolling the waters of a dying Tribe just when Aang set everything off are so small. <em>So</em> small. She knows this.</p><p>She can’t believe it, though. The ice is not forgiving. One hundred years of war has taught her that the world isn’t watching out for them. Spirits watch over you and all that, but what good are spirits that watch you die?</p><p>Sokka makes it to the top of the wall and her heart sinks. A black spot on the horizon. That horizon she’s been looking to all her life, and the black spot sailing straight out of her nightmares to greet her.</p><p>She calls the warning to everyone. Danger on the horizon, be ready.</p><p>Sokka herself watches and paces, keeping herself warm and not taking her eyes from the enemy’s approach.</p><p>The ship looms, growing larger every moment until it is towering over their village. Their entire world dwarfed by this one machine of metal crunching through the ice. Powered by something other than wind or rowing. Firebending would be the obvious answer, but how to use fire to make a ship move? And to move with the power break through the very ice they’ve set their homes on, the hull must be strong to have not even a mark left on it.</p><p>Katara yells at her to move out of the way. And yeah, Sokka probably is concentrating on the wrong things. But she won’t move, she won’t step aside and let the enemy into her home. She clutches her spear and watches the towering hull of the ship that can break the ice in two, in case there is a weakness she can exploit.</p><p>Yeah, it’s as foolhardy in reality as it sounds inside her head.</p><p>Soon enough none of that matters as the wall beneath her feet gives way to ship as much as the ice did. She rides the cascade down, barely staying upright as it carries her to the centre of the village, where everyone is gathered and waiting. There’s nowhere to run, they’re already in the heart of the safest place they have. In between the terror of invasion, Sokka spares a moment to give an anguished wail for her demolished lookout tower.</p><p>Katara’s yell again brings her back to her situation as the front of the ship… folds down? That can’t be the most efficient way to construct a ship. A decent battering ram, maybe, but it must open up such weaknesses in the hull.</p><p>Weakness or not, it’s coming right for her and she needs to scramble back to get out of the way.</p><p>She lands on her back in the snow at the end of a gangplank (the least efficient gangplank she’s ever seen, but definitely the most dramatic). Steam hisses into the frigid air and Sokka can feel a wave of warmth even from where she’s lying.</p><p>Lying, right. Need to stop gawping and get up.</p><p>She snatches her spear up and gets to her feet. A quick check shows her boomerang is still on her back and club is attached to her belt. She ushers the Tribe further away, never turning her back on the enemy as they move. The further away the more time to dodge any fire that will come.</p><p>At the top of the gangway are soldiers. Armoured, faceless soldiers (better or worse than being able to see their smile when you run screaming? Something to ponder on later). They’re flanking a… boy? He’s leading them, though (perhaps he’s like her? Dad always said she’d look younger as a man than she really is).</p><p>The Fire Nation scum march down the gangway as if they own the place and Sokka’s blood boils. Not while she still stands. She takes up her spear and points it at the invader, yelling as she charges him.</p><p>Spear pushed aside, kicked in the leg, thrown off the gangway and into what’s left of the wall. She’s gone arse over tit before she could even comprehend she was in trouble. Her face burns hot enough with humiliation to melt the pile of snow she’s in and right through the ice to the ocean below.</p><p>Once she pulls herself free, she sees the teen’s back turned to her as he says something to her Tribe, and then bends, he bends fire at them and the children scream. The burning humiliation turns to rage, and that turned back is too good an opportunity. She hauls her spear back and throws it with a roar.</p><p>He notices and steps aside in time, but at least he’s distracted from her family and the spear sticks in the snow at his feet. The other soldiers don’t see fit to intervene at all. It’s galling and enraging, that they think she isn’t worth their effort. She runs at the boy again and he moves into a fighting stance (at least <em>some one</em> thinks her worth the effort).</p><p>She manages to feint and duck to the side at the last minute. The boy’s hit goes wide and she grabs her spear from the ground and swings it around like a club.</p><p>He catches it.</p><p>Sokka tugs at it but he doesn’t let go. She grabs her club from her belt with the other hand and swings that at him.</p><p>He catches that too.</p><p>They are left in the ridiculous position of both holding both of Sokka’s weapons. Until he takes the initiative and kicks her square in the chest, sending her flying back to land in the snow once more.</p><p>She is winded and lies in the snow but she can’t, she can’t lie still and let him near her Tribe. She forces herself to sit up, reaches behind her back and pulls out her boomerang. She throws it.</p><p>He dodges, and gives her this look. Like he’s above her. She snarls in reply.</p><p>Luckily, the boomerang really works it magic on the return journey.</p><p>He doesn’t look so high and mighty after being conked in the back of the head.</p><p>He looks angry.</p><p>Really angry.</p><p>And fiery.</p><p>Right, yeah. Firebender.</p><p>He advances on her, blades of <em>fire</em> sticking out of his <em>hands</em>.</p><p>Sokka scrambles back, slips. She grabs a handful of snow and throws it at him.</p><p>Firebender beats snow. Huh. Good to know.</p><p>She scrabbles back further and nothing is coming to mind. All she can see is hands and flames.  Hands that can control fire, what can she do against that? What can she <em>do</em>?</p><p>She’s snapped out of her thoughts by a club flying by her towards the invader.</p><p>“Leave him alone!”</p><p>Oh, Sokka recognises that voice. “Tota, stay back!” The reminder that everyone else is here, that she is the only one between them and the fire hands. She scrabbles to her feet and places herself in front of Tota.</p><p>She still doesn’t know what she’s actually going to <em>do</em>, because there are still so many soldiers, and still they can control fire, and still she’s just one girl who’s spent the last three years waving weapons around in front of five-year-olds like that’ll do anything for anyone.</p><p>Luckily for her, a blur of yellow, orange and black shoots into the village and knocks the invader off his feet.</p><p>The penguin Aang is riding shrugs him off and he tumbles with a chuckle, like there isn’t a great metal ship sticking out of their home. “Hey Katara, hey Sokka!” he says cheerfully.</p><p>“Hey Aang,” says Sokka, too relieved to have help to feel any annoyance. “Thanks for coming.” She means it too.</p><p>Aang is… really good at fighting. And bending. And—</p><p>“You’re the airbender?” says the invader jerk who, wow, his helmet has come off and that can’t seriously be his hair can it? “You’re the avatar?”</p><p>Aang’s the what now?</p><p>Aang doesn’t deny it. Katara gasps.</p><p>“No way,” says Sokka.</p><p>---</p><p>So, Aang offered himself to the Fire Nation, and the village was left unharmed (aside from the gaping hole in the wall), and none of that is sitting right with Sokka. Aang came back to defend them after he’d been banished and Sokka had been, well, a bit of a paranoid dick (not entirely unwarranted, as it turns out, but never let it be said that Sokka isn’t capable of any self-reflection).</p><p>There’s not really anything else for it but to go after him and return the favour. And, well, go on with the avatar to help him… restore balance? Which has to be spirity talk for ‘end the war’ and Sokka can justify abandoning her post as the last man of the village for something like ending the war.</p><p>But still, she needs to talk to, “Tota,” she says to the little boy (so young, they’re all too young for any of this), “I need to talk to you, man to man.”</p><p>Tota nods solemnly and follows her away from the women.</p><p>Sokka crouches down to be on his level and puts a hand on his shoulder. Much like Dad had put his hand on her shoulder when he’d told her, “I’m leaving the village,” she says, “And that will make you the oldest boy here.”</p><p>“You’re going? I have to defend the village?!” Tota asks, looking up at her with wide eyes and an edge of panic, which she can well understand after the events of the day.</p><p>“No,” Sokka tells him, “No, not at all.”</p><p>“Someone has to,” says Tota.</p><p>Sokka smiles wanly. “Yeah they do, and that’s why I am asking you to show your mama how to swing a club. Show her how to use a spear. Show all the women who are willing everything you know.</p><p>Tota frowns and takes that in. “But Sokka, they’re girls, and you said—”</p><p>“Yeah,” Sokka interrupts, “Yeah, I know what I said. But I was wrong. It can’t be left to the kids to defend the village. The women will have to, and I bet if you show them how, they’ll fight like mother polar bear-dogs to save their children.”</p><p>Tota shakes his head with an air of certainty. “Mama could never be that scary.”</p><p>Sokka snorts. “Not to you maybe, but remember when I accidently hit you in the head? Trust me, she can be scary.”</p><p>Tota purses his lips, clearly not convinced. “How long will you be gone for?”</p><p>“I don’t know. But we’re going to stop the war, so everything will be better when we come back.” Sokka cringes internally at her own lack of specifics.</p><p>“I’m going to miss you.”</p><p>Sokka’s heart melts just a little. “I’ll miss you too, little man, I’ll miss all of you.” She pulls him into a hug. “I promise I’ll do what I can to get a message back to you all.”</p><p>Sokka pulls away and goes to start packing a canoe for herself and Katara. She hasn’t actually asked if Katara will come, but she knows her sister well enough. Anyway, Katara is standing at the edge of the ice, looking off into the distance and passionately arguing that they should be going after Aang.</p><p>Sokka has a fair amount of experience in persuasion, despite her relative lack of experience in almost everything else. Rule one of Sokka’s rules of persuasion: actually check you need to do any persuading before you start. Rookie mistake from Katara.</p><p>And she’s used up all her impassioned speech <em>before</em> Gran-Gran arrives to catch them like two children sneaking extra jerky after dinner.</p><p>Just as well Gran-Gran fully supports their mad new calling.</p><p>“It’s been so long since I had hope,” says Gran-Gran, handing a bundle of bedding to Katara. But you brought it back to life, my little waterbender.” She brushes over Katara’s cheek with her hand, smiling with all her love. “And you, my brave warrior,” Gran-Gran’s look turns sharper, more mischievous. “Be nice to your sister.”</p><p>“Yeah, I’ll do my best,” says Sokka, hugging her tightly despite her less than enthusiastic words. “Gran-Gran,” she pulls away from the hug to look Gran-Gran in the eye. “I’ve asked Tota to teach everyone how to use a club and spear. You’ll support him, won’t you?”</p><p>“Support him in teaching the women how to fight?” Gran-Gran smiles, “It’ll be my pleasure.”</p><p>Katara is looking at Sokka with an eyebrow raised. “Teach the women to fight? I thought that wasn’t allowed.”</p><p>Ugh, Katara just had to go and ruin it all, waving her smugness all over the place. Sokka nudges her with her shoulder on the way to the canoe. “Shut up. We need to start following the ship before we lose it completely.”</p><p>“We’ll never catch a warship in that,” says Katara. She’s not wrong, but what else is—</p><p>The grumbling roar of Aang’s monster bison sounds over the nearest snow drift.</p><p>“Appa!” Katara shouts, running to greet it.</p><p>Sokka sighs, watching Katara immediately abandon the nice, understandable canoe for the magical flying beast. “You just love taking me out of my comfort zone, don’t you?”</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Does it feel like I'm trying to rush them out of the South Pole? Because I totally am.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. Chapter 3</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>The newly-minted trio set off on their journeys. Destinations: Air temple (briefly, for fire nation reasons), Kyoshi Island (also briefly, for different fire nation reasons).</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>I'm skipping a lot of things because I don't want to re-write stuff that hasn't changed. I hope it doesn't get too confusing!</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Sokka will give this to the bison monster: it's a lot faster than a canoe.</p><p>It can also fly, which she can't quite believe, but all evidence points to the positive, so she'll have to.</p><p>They catch up to the warship quickly, and once they're close enough to see what's going on, it appears that Aang has already rescued himself and they've arrived in time to pick him up.</p><p>Sokka feels a flicker of resentment that a child can fight off an entire boatload of Fire Nation soldiers, but it is swiftly drowned under the relief that now she and Katara don't need fight off said boatload themselves. Besides, they're going to be travelling the length of the globe from South pole to North pole, they need at least one person who can actually fight.</p><p>Sokka's never had the chance to be reinforcements, it's surprisingly invigorating. </p><p>In her newfound vigour, she takes her spear and climbs over the edge of Appa's saddle to hang from the outside, like she's seen in depictions of the whale hunts (or were they examples of what not to do when whale hunting?). It's fine, it's perfectly fine. Katara is having a minor snitfit and wow, she should have waited until they were over the boat because the sea is very far away and this is <em>terrifying</em>. But it's fine.</p><p>Sokka hefts her spear and throws it at one of the soldiers attacking Aang. She misses, mostly, but it's a decent distraction, and gives Aang some breathing room (which is probably something airbenders need a lot of, right? Because, y'know, air?). She unhooks her club from her belt and (once they're low enough) with a yell she leaps onto the nearest soldier.</p><p>It's not a comfortable landing, what with all the armour, but the both of them are surprised enough by her actions that sokka manages to come out on top (literally).</p><p>---</p><p>The fight, if Sokka were to sum it up in a few words, could be described as messy, uncoordinated, and over quickly.</p><p>That’s what happens when you’re with the Avatar: he glows and gets suddenly very good at waterbending. Apparently. Spirit magic. Sokka can’t, and won’t try to explain it. But she will, on this occasion, be grateful for it.</p><p>If the way Aang has collapsed on to Appa’s saddle says anything, it’s also tiring, which is the one understandable part of it all.</p><p>Sokka has taken the reigns, flooded with energy from their victory and successful escape. It also gets her away from Katara cradling Aang in the saddle and gazing at him (ugh).</p><p>“Sokka!” Katara shouts (apparently not completely distracted by Aang), “You scared the crap out of me!”</p><p>Sokka laughs, because it’s funny now she knows she didn’t die. “Yeah, I’m going to re-think my approach next time. I went in a bit reckless.”</p><p>“Oh, you think?” says Katara.</p><p>Sokka twists her body to face her sister. “But you need to promise not to freeze me in the middle of battle!”</p><p>To Sokka’s satisfaction, Katara looks chagrined. “Yeah.” She looks down at Aang, “Maybe we can work on our waterbending together while we travel. Even without a master to teach us, it can’t hurt, right?”</p><p>“Right,” Aang agrees. “I’d like that.”</p><p>“Great, thanks.” Sokka turns around to face the way they’re going (any direction, so long as it’s North) “I’ll carry on waving weapons at nothing, I guess,” she mutters to herself.</p><p>---</p><p>"Why didn't you tell us you were the avatar?" Katara asks once they have all calmed down, and they’ve travelled far enough for the silence between them to get boring.</p><p>Aang pauses a moment before he answers, pulling his knees in to rest his chin on them. It’s not easy to admit to these two people who have already been through so much for him. "Because I never wanted to be."</p><p>"Oh!” Sokka suddenly interjects, "By the way, you're unbanished from our tribe." They wave their hand in a mystical kind of way. (Aang has heard Sokka referred to as both he and she, so for ease, he's settled on ‘they’ until he learns more.)</p><p>"Thanks, Sokka!" Says Aang, genuinely pleased at the show of trust. Not that the following him and saving him and travelling with him don't already give the message, but it feels like a cleaning of the slate.</p><p>One of his slates that actually can be cleaned.</p><p>"You should never have banished him in the first place," says Katara with pursed lips.</p><p>"Kataraaa," Sokka whines, "Come on, I didn't know then what I know now."</p><p>"It wouldn't have killed you to be kinder to a guest,” Katara persists.</p><p>Aang takes a deep breath. "No, Katara, your--" He stops. Monkey feathers! Why had he started his sentence like that? But they’re both waiting for him to continue, so he’ll have to. "Your sister-brother was right. I had no idea what the danger was, and I endangered you all."</p><p>The Water Tribe siblings are staring at him.</p><p>Sokka cracks first and starts laughing. "Sister-brother! That's great!"</p><p>Katara huffs and smacks Sokka on the leg. She smiles kindly at Aang though. "Sokka is my sister. Just sister."</p><p>"O-oh," Aang's eyes widen in horror, "Sorry! I thought I heard--"</p><p>"You did," says Katara before Aang's horror can build too much. "My <em>sister</em> wanted to be a warrior and the only way she was allowed to do that was to pretend to be a man."</p><p>Sokka's mirth dies immediately. "Hey, I'm not pretending!"</p><p>"Oh, so you're really a man now?" Katara asks with heavy disapproval.</p><p>"No!" Sokka defends, "But I'm not pretending."</p><p>"That doesn't make sense."</p><p>"Wow!" Aang interjects, spurred on by the palpable tension rising between the two siblings, “That sure is interesting. I’ve never heard of anything like that in the Water Tribes, but then I’ve spent most of my time travelling in the Earth Kingdom and Fire Nation.” One reason he’d run in the direction of the South Pole, where they wouldn’t recognise him. “Though if it’s been a hundred years, I guess they could be pretty different by now, too.”</p><p>“Well, we’ve never left the South Pole,” says Sokka, and Katara is looking at him with a soft kind of worried expression? He doesn’t quite get it, but it’s better than the arguing. “Hundred year old knowledge is better than no knowledge at all,” Sokka reasons.</p><p>"You've really been to the Fire Nation?" Katara asks.</p><p>"Sure have!" Aang answers.</p><p>"What was it like?"</p><p>"Must've been scary,” adds Sokka, “All those firebenders everywhere."</p><p>"Not really," says Aang. "Some firebenders would make beautiful displays with their fire at festivals, like dragons flying through the air." He waves an arm around his head, showing how the fire dragons would move.</p><p>"Flying dragons made of fire?" Sokka asks, "and you're telling me it wasn't scary?"</p><p>Aang considers it. “It was kind of scary, but in a fun way!”</p><p>“Is there a fun way to be scared?” asks Sokka.</p><p>“Yes,” says Katara, “Like penguin sledding.”</p><p>“Yeah, just like penguin sledding!” Aang agrees and smiles at Katara.</p><p>Katara smiles back and Aang feels all kinds of wonderful things.</p><p>“Ugh,” says Sokka.</p><p>The gazing starts to go on too long, he needs to move on. “Boy, I’ve not been home for a hundred years. My room must be a mess!” he says, for something to say. Katara doesn’t laugh like he’d hoped she would.</p><p>“Yeah, Aang, about that,” says Sokka, “It might be pretty different to what you remember.”</p><p>“<em>Sokka,”</em> Katara hisses.</p><p>“I suppose…” says Aang, his mind skirting around what a hundred years would mean (and can it really have been that long? Katara and Sokka themselves have said they’ve never been outside their village. It’s not that he thinks they’re lying, it’s that a hundred years is a really long time, and no airbenders? Well, they’re not exactly easy to pin down). “There must be so many new techniques to learn!” he suddenly realises, “Part of becoming a master is to come up with something new. You’re right, Sokka, people could be doing some cool new things I’ve never seen before!”</p><p>“Right,” says Sokka, “But war will have changed the Air Temples in other ways, like the Southern Water Tribe was changed.”</p><p>Well, Aang had never seen the Water Tribes <em>before</em>, so he doesn’t really have the comparison. But there are small villages all over the Earth Kingdom, and sure, Katara and Sokka’s village would really be on the <em>small</em> small side of small villages, but it’s not— It doesn’t mean everything was the war.</p><p>Aang’s eyes sting and he blinks quickly because there’s a lump in his throat and oh wow, how did that get there?</p><p>“Here,” says Katara gently, handing him a water container.</p><p>Aang takes it gratefully and drinks, swallowing the lump back down.</p><p>“Maybe Sokka should concentrate on where we’re going before we get lost,” Katara says pointedly. (“Hey!” Sokka defends, “I know exactly where we are!”) “We should get some rest while we travel. I bet that fight took a lot out of you.”</p><p>Aang nods. He could easily stay up and steer Appa if needed, but to be honest, resting with Katara sounds pretty good. And it’s… nice to be with other people and have someone to rely on.</p><p>---</p><p>Sokka knew it was going to be bad. Well, Aang’s the last airbender, finding out that everyone he knew is not only dead, but were killed horribly and never got to live out their lives, that was never going to be good. Sokka can’t imagine that kind of pain.</p><p>(She can though, if she thinks of going back to the South Pole and finding that they’d all been killed without her – without the men – to protect them. She can imagine that, but she doesn’t want to.)</p><p>Whiting out and nearly blowing everything off the mountainside is a reasonable reaction in the face of that.</p><p>She wants to be angry with Katara, for babying him before they got to the Air Temple. But really, she doesn’t think it would have made a difference in the end. In the end, he’s taken it pretty well, she guesses.</p><p>The only comparison she has is her own family and tribe dragging themselves through the losses. So Katara and her, they’re not completely without experience. They’re good at surviving, anyhow.</p><p>“Did you mean what you said up there?” asks Aang. He’s sitting with his back against Appa, looking tiny (because anyone looks tiny in comparison to Appa). “That you’re my family now?”</p><p>“Yes, of course!” says Katara. She stops chopping vegetables, looking like she might just bundle up Aang and try to smother the bad feelings out of him. “If that’s alright with you.”</p><p>“Yes. Yes!” For a moment, Aang looks a little more alive. “It’s just… we didn’t really have families, at the Air Temples. Or, I guess everyone was family. I think, from what other people have told me, it’s sort of the same.”</p><p>“Like Tribe,” says Katara softly, “The Tribe is family too.”</p><p>“Literally,” says Sokka, “Pretty sure we’re all cousins of some kind, at least.” Sokka rubs her chin. “Unless you don’t count marriage. But if you count marriage, definitely. All family.”</p><p>“Sokka.” Katara gives her a flat look. “Not the point.”</p><p>“I lost control,” says Aang, looking like he’s trying to disappear entirely into Appa’s fur. “I could’ve hurt you both.”</p><p>“Psht,” says Sokka, before Katara and her worried face can get soppy. “Accidental almost-murder is like, the quintessential family experience.”</p><p>Katara’s shooting her the <em>what are you doing?</em> look. “Yeah,” she says slowly, “Be glad you weren’t near Sokka when she was learning the boomerang. Nearly took off everyone’s head at least once.”</p><p>Sokka sticks her tongue out at her sister, but notes that Aang looks a little less turned in on himself. “That’s an exaggeration. It wasn’t that bad.” She turns to Aang. “Be glad you aren’t anywhere Katara can <em>accidentally</em> waterbend you into the freezing cold sea!”</p><p>“That again?” says Katara.</p><p>“I nearly died!” Sokka insists.</p><p>“You were in there for a second <em>thanks to my waterbending,</em> and we were two minutes from home. You spent the next three days wrapped up by the fire and eating as much as you wanted. Gran-Gran had to kick you back outside or else you’d still be there.”</p><p>“Another exaggeration,” Sokka sniffs.</p><p>“Barely,” says Katara. “Speaking of family,” she continues pointedly and Sokka braces herself. “Family can help do the cooking.” Katara meets Sokka’s eyes in challenge.</p><p>Aang moves away from Appa but hesitates a moment. “If you need help, then I can—”</p><p>“Not you, Aang,” says Katara, syrupy sweet with soft smiles, “You’ve been through enough, you should rest. I’m talking to Sokka,” Katara’s voice hardens and she looks back at Sokka. “Or are you too much of a man to help?”</p><p>It’s the first meal they’ve cooked away from home. Sokka is a man of the Tribe, but it had always been an understanding between the sisters that Sokka was only a man because she had no other way to get what she wanted. Sokka shrugs half-heartedly. “You’re so much better at it.”</p><p>“Because I’ve been doing it alone for years. You’ll learn again.” She holds the knife out to Sokka, handle first.</p><p>Sokka purses her lips. Aang is watching them like he has no idea what’s going on between them, which is fair. Katara had always been unhappy that Sokka was ‘excused’ from the women’s work, given that what had been Sokka’s chores fell to her. Sokka couldn’t exactly blame her for feeling angry about it (which was annoying) but Sokka had earned her place as a man, she wasn’t going to risk that.</p><p>But now they’re not in the South Pole anymore, and there’s no one watching except Aang, who has no idea what any of it means anyway. And, well, Sokka is a practical girl above everything else.</p><p>She reaches out and takes the knife. “Sure,” she says, meeting Katara’s eyes. “I’ll help.”</p><p>Katara softens immediately, smiling. “Thanks, Sokka,” she says sincerely, and Sokka remembers that she loves her little sister. Until, “Slice those,” Katara orders, pointing at the root vegetables “Make sure they’re a similar size. Throw them in the pot when you’re done.”</p><p>Irritation flares, but Sokka breathes through it. “Aye-aye, captain!” she says, as obnoxious as she can, and gets to chopping.</p><p>“Do I have to start arguing with you like that?” asks Aang. Oh heck, nearly forgot he was there. “To be family?”</p><p>“No, Aang,” says Katara kindly, the same time that Sokka says,</p><p>“Maybe, Aang. Maybe one day we’ll annoy each other enough.” She smiles at him, to show it’s a joke.</p><p>Katara huffs and prods Sokka with the wooden spoon. “Don’t tease him, Sokka.”</p><p>But the cloud that’s been hanging over Aang has cleared for now and Sokka has worked a smile out of him, so she feels like it’s been a job well done.</p><p>Sokka has to keep reminding herself that Aang isn’t one of the five-year-olds she used to train. Sometimes it’s easy, because he’s incredibly talented and able, and watching him on his glider doing impossible flips through the air is (though she will not admit it) awe-inspiring. But then he lists all the animals he wants to ride, quite literally all over the world, and Sokka has to fight not to let her eyes glaze over with flashbacks of the kids breathlessly recounting every action they had made since she saw them the previous day while she desperately tried to get them on task.</p><p> ---</p><p>“I don’t know if we can fit all of that in,” says Sokka with patience that surprises even herself. At Katara’s look, she adds, “We can probably do some of them that are on the way, I suppose.” Everything is arguably on the way to the other side of the world. Aang seems too nice to exploit a loophole like that.</p><p>“We can go see the giant elephant-koi of Kyoshi Island, right?” Aang says, utilising his youthful looks expertly (seriously, tiger-seal cub!). “Appa will need to land somewhere eventually.”</p><p>“Yeah,” says Sokka, sealing her fate, “Yeah, we can go to Kyoshi Island.”</p><p>---</p><p>Aang has a terrifying time riding the fish. No wonder he thinks firebenders can be fun if this is what he does on his time off.</p><p>And then they’re captured, because Sokka was distracted having a few years knocked off her lifespan. No one would’ve got the one-up on her warrior instincts if she’d been paying attention.</p><p>---</p><p>Suki watches the odd collection of people they ambushed on the beach, fairly sure that it’s going to end up being for their own good, the way they were messing around with the unagi. Two boys and a girl. One boy is looking far too unworried by his situation, but the other boy is doing more than enough very loud worrying for the both of them (she’d call them threats, but he’d have to actually be threatening for that).</p><p>Once they are safely tied to a pole, she orders their blindfolds removed.</p><p>The youngest (?) boy immediately smiles at them once he sees them. The other two take a moment to get their bearings, before the boy launches into more indignant yelling and demands to know where the men who attacked them are.</p><p>If Suki didn't have to stay stern, she would have laughed at the absolutely filthy look the girl sends his way. "There are no men," Suki states with relish. "We ambushed and overpowered you." She gestures to her warriors gathered around. "Pretty easily," she adds, for fun.</p><p>"Please ignore my sister," says the girl, "She's an idiot."</p><p>Suki gives the girl's 'sister' a once-over. Right, boyish girl rather than girly boy, she can see it. Makes his- <em>her </em>yelling completely nonsensical, though. She’d had it pegged as the injured pride of an insecure boy talking.</p><p>"I'm Katara," says Katara, over the top of her sister's further protests. "The idiot's Sokka, and we're travelling with Aang. He's the avatar."</p><p>"I am!" Aang agrees cheerfully.</p><p>"The avatar." Suki repeats. This kid? "Right."</p><p>"No, really, I am." He leaps out of his restraints, too high to have done it with anything but airbending.</p><p>Suki puts her hands on her fans out of habit, but really she’s just in awe along with the rest of the village.</p><p>“Watch this!” says Aang, then whips his hands out and… spins a marble? Between them?</p><p>She doesn’t know about avatar, but they sure are a band of idiots.</p><p>---</p><p>So the avatar has returned to the world and to Kyoshi island. Suki hasn’t really changed her original assessment of band of idiots (perhaps pair of idiots plus Katara?) but she doesn’t have time to worry about that. There’s training, there’s the usual patrols and scouting, and the everyday tasks of keeping everyone on the island safe.</p><p>But for now, training. She and her warriors are going through katas. They have an audience. The audience is trying to pretend it’s not there. The audience is not doing a good job at it. She gives a good twenty minutes for Sokka to come out and reveal herself before saying, “Is that what you call stealthy?”</p><p>There’s a gasp and a thud and an, “Ow!” Then Sokka moves into the doorway, rubbing her head. “Uh yeah,” she says, looking around at everyone, “I mean, no, I mean, I was just…” In a moment the embarrassment melts off her and she folds her arms and smirks, hip cocked and exuding an overwhelming sense of obnoxious teen. “I was just seeing if your training was worth my time.”</p><p>“Is that so?” says Suki. “What did you think?” But before Sokka can answer, she continues, “Or maybe you could show us a thing or two.” She glances at the class, who are all enjoying the intermission.</p><p>“Well,” says Sokka, losing the confidence and hesitating a moment, “Hand-to-hand isn’t my speciality.”</p><p>“Oh, making excuses already?” Suki mocks, “Where’s that warrior spirit? We’re just a bunch of girls, after all.” The girls laugh, giggle, really, playing along with her.</p><p>“Well yeah,” says Sokka, confidence coming back, “But don’t put yourselves down too much.”</p><p>Is she serious? She can’t be serious, can she? But then again: idiot.</p><p>“Alright then.” Sokka swaggers over to stand next to Suki, she nods to the rest of the class. Then Sokka stands there, looking like she hadn’t thought this far ahead.</p><p>“Well,” Suki prompts, “Ladies first.”</p><p>The play of emotions across Sokka’s face at that is very interesting, but Suki can’t spend too long analysing it, because Sokka’s arm hauls back and she goes for a punch. It feels like it could’ve been a pretty solid punch, if she’d managed to hit.</p><p>Sokka puts her all into every hit, and that makes her slow. It also makes Suki wonder if she knows how to spar. Suki can step around her easily, and use Sokka's lack of balance against her. It's easy, humiliatingly easy to get Sokka on the ground, tied up with her own waistband. The room fills with laughter.</p><p>Sokka struggles on the ground for a moment, and then stops, letting her forehead fall against the wooden floorboards. With her free hand she feels the knot behind her back, and eventually gets it undone.</p><p>She pops back up to her feet, tying the waistband back around her waist with a much more complicated knot. She is red-faced, but grinning when she says, "Best two out of three?" And goes in with another punch before Suki can answer.</p><p>Again, Suki sidesteps, but Sokka's hits are more measured and with less follow through for Suki to take advantage of. Suki is faintly impressed by the audacity, but mostly she is annoyed by the arrogance. When she takes Sokka down again, she does it hard and without any of the whimsy. It's not humiliation this time, it's dealing with an irritation. She holds Sokka's arms to the small of her back, and presses Sokka face first into the floor with her body weight.</p><p>"You're a waste of our time, outsider," she declares to the room. "You are not welcome in this dojo. Get out." She lets Sokka up.</p><p>Sokka climbs to her feet, rubbing her arms and stretching them out. She gives Suki a look that Suki can’t quite work out, but she leaves without saying another word.</p><p>---</p><p>At the end of training, when they are putting their fans away, chatting amongst themselves, Sokka comes back to the dojo.</p><p>“I said you’re not welcome here,” says Suki. The other warriors stop to watch, just in case they’re needed.</p><p>Sokka gets to her knees. “I’m sorry. I have disrespected you and your traditions. I beg your forgiveness.”</p><p>“Why should I give it?”</p><p>“I want to be taught. I am with the avatar, and we’re going to stop the war, which will help everyone, and the more I know, the more I can help him. It’s in all our interests for him to succeed.”</p><p>Suki tilts her head. “You’re not very good at apologies, are you?”</p><p>Sokka is silent a moment, then bends over until her nose is nearly touching the floor. “I <em>am</em> sorry. I was—I <em>am</em> jealous of you. And I behaved like an ass.”</p><p>“Jealous?”</p><p>“You…” Sokka looks to the side. “You are a warrior. You know how to fight. All of you do. You can- you <em>have</em> protected your home. I—I, it’s all I have ever wanted. But I-‘m not enough to protect my home. So I’m jealous of you. And I’ve been an ass. And I’m sorry, and, please, if I can ask you not to take it out on my sister or Aang.”</p><p>Suki looks down at Sokka, letting her stew a little. She hadn’t expected Sokka to come back, and hadn’t expected her to apologise and definitely hadn’t expected her to have that level of self-reflection. Most of all, she hadn’t expected Sokka to say anything she would empathise with so much. “Do you know what really annoyed me about your behaviour?” she asks.</p><p>“U-uh, no? Do you want me to guess?”</p><p>Suki considers it, but while she was enjoying this, she wasn’t cruel. “No, I’ll tell you. It’s that you were trying to learn our ways. Without respect, or courtesy, you were trying to learn what I wasn’t teaching you.”</p><p>“I’m sorry,”</p><p>“But! The absolutely most annoying thing is that I was a little bit impressed.”</p><p>“What?” Sokka comes up out of her deep bow.</p><p>“Yeah, it surprised me too. But, the way you were trying to learn from me by picking a fight, even though you’d end up humiliated and beaten many times? Don’t get me wrong, it was underhanded, annoying as heck, and advice for the next time you’re in this situation: try asking first, before you start creeping about.”</p><p>Sokka nods. “Right, duly noted.”</p><p>“But I had to respect the tenacity.”</p><p>There’s a long silence and then, “Right.” Sokka starts to get to her feet. “Thank you. I… I hope we’re at least on neutral terms now. Please, like I said, Katara and Aang had nothing to do with any of my actions. So, I, I guess I should go now.”</p><p>“You could,” Suki agrees, “Or I could teach you how to fight.”</p><p>Sokka looks up at her with such astonishment that Suki can’t hold in the smile. “You’ll teach me? Honestly?”</p><p>“We don’t usually teach outsiders,” says Suki, “But like you said, you’re with the avatar.”</p><p>Sokka’s tense frame relaxes with gratitude. “Thank you, Suki, thank you!”</p><p>“But you have to follow all of our traditions.”</p><p>“Yes, of course!”</p><p>“Well then, girls, fetch a spare uniform for the new recruit.”</p><p>---</p><p>With enough of them helping, getting the uniform on doesn’t take long at all. Any misgivings about teaching Sokka are assuaged by her sheer glee at having the uniform, and how she examines the material of each part with such care.</p><p>“The silk thread symbolises the brave warrior’s blood that flows through our veins,” Suki explains as Sokka runs her fingers over it. “The gold insignia represents the honour of a warrior’s heart.”</p><p>“Bravery and honour,” Sokka murmurs with a smile as she touches the gold.</p><p>One of the girls hands her the face paint before leaving, then it is Suki and Sokka alone. Sokka reaches for the white paint and dips her fingers in.</p><p>“Sokka!” Suki goes to grab the pot off Sokka but manages to restrain herself.</p><p>Sokka freezes.</p><p>“We use brushes.” Suki points to the brushes on the tray.</p><p>“Oh, right,” says Sokka, putting the pot back down. “I usually do warpaint with my fingers.” She uses the white on her fingers to cover some of her cheek.</p><p>“Ah, well, let me.” Suki picks up the pot and brush. “It’ll be quicker.” She brushes Sokka’s fingerprints out of the paint still in the pot.</p><p>Sokka keeps very still, and follows Suki’s small instructions of where to look. “You’ve done this before,” she says as Sokka allows the brush to run over her face with only a small twitch.</p><p>“It’s been a while since someone else did my paint for me,” Sokka mumbles, keeping her lip movement to a minimum. “But I had to learn somehow. And you’re much more delicate than my Dad.”</p><p>“Hold still,” Suki warns before painting the red onto Sokka’s lips. She looks up at Sokka’s eyes once she’s done and, wow, she never quite noticed how intimate it is to paint a stranger’s lips. She clears her throat. “All done.” Steps away and tidies up the pots and brushes.</p><p>Sokka immediately pulls the fans out of her belt and starts to investigate them, opening and closing then, testing their edge and weight and how they are to throw and catch.</p><p>“Oh, hey Sokka!” says Aang, making a brief stop at the door. “So asking worked then?”</p><p>Sokka deflates a little. “Yes, Aang, asking worked. Thanks for the… wisdom.”</p><p>“No problem, anytime!” Aang dashes off before he’s even finished, pursued by most of the younger girls of the village, judging by the squeals.</p><p>Sokka sighs heavily, and Suki considers laughing at her, but that wouldn’t be helpful, she did ask, and she’s here to learn.</p><p>“So, you said hand-to-hand wasn’t your speciality. What is?”</p><p>Sokka snaps to attention. “Oh uh, more long-range stuff. Boomerang, spear, thrown stuff, y’know. Snowballs. Dad didn’t want me up front.”</p><p>“Right.” Suki assesses Sokka’s form. “Let’s start on your stance.”</p><p>“It made sense,” Sokka defends, as she falls into an approximation of the stance, even though Suki never attacked. “I was only twelve.”</p><p>“You’ve been training since you were twelve?” Suki asks, moving around Sokka and adjusting her position. People who’ve been training for years are usually, well, better at it.</p><p>“No before that, but the men left some years ago, so training’s just been me and the kids since then. I can’t exactly spar with five-year-olds.”</p><p>“The men left?” says Suki, vaguely horrified and hoping she understood wrong. “And judging by what you were saying this morning, the women can’t fight?”</p><p>Sokka shook her head.</p><p>“And all of your warriors upped and left?” Suki can’t imagine it, knowingly leaving her home without protection.</p><p>“You don’t understand,” Sokka says.</p><p>“I really don’t,” Suki agrees.</p><p>“The Fire Nation could destroy us easily, if they wanted to,” says Sokka darkly, “The only reason we’ve survived is because they haven’t tried hard enough. They killed the airbenders.” Sokka snorts softly. “All the airbenders except Aang. They could do the same to us.” Sokka fixes Suki with a hard and determined stare. “We will only be safe when the war is over and the Fire Nation is defeated. Until then, we only exist because the Fire Nation let us. So, the men left to fight the war and beat the Fire Nation.”</p><p>Suki looks away from Sokka’s intense glare with the excuse of adjusting her back foot. “They’ll make such a difference to the war effort?”</p><p>Sokka shrugs one shoulder and suddenly her icy hardness is gone. “Eh, probably not. But it’s better than waiting to die.”</p><p>Suki can’t tell how much – if any – of that was aimed at her. She’s suddenly painfully aware of how they had declared their neutrality that morning. Sokka wouldn’t know, but Suki knows that they have sighted ships travelling South, over the last century. There’s not much else south of Kyoshi Island. It wasn’t exactly a mystery what those ships were heading for.</p><p>She doesn’t believe they would have been able to deter the Fire Nation from going south for long – they’re only one island – but she doubts <em>we rathered they killed you than us</em> is any kind of comfort to Sokka and her people. “I think we’re ready to move on to your punches,” says Suki.</p><p>---</p><p>Sokka improves surprisingly quickly, even going so far as to get some (lucky) shots in. With actual training, Suki has no doubt that she would be a very good fighter.</p><p>But they are asked to put their lesson into practice far sooner than expected. The warning bell rings out and they look out the door. From their position at the top of the hill, they can see the Fire Nation ship in the bay.</p><p>Sokka swears softly. “This ship’s been following us since the we left our village. They’re after Aang.”</p><p>“You didn’t think to say anything sooner?” Suki demands.</p><p>“And get ourselves kicked out even quicker?” Sokka asks, but at Suki’s deeply unimpressed face, she takes on a more bashful tone. “Yeah, sorry, should’ve mentioned it. They were closer than I thought.” Sokka frowns out at the bay as the front of the ship folds down to form a gangway.</p><p>“Come on, we’ve got some time before they get here.” She pulls Sokka out of the dojo and runs, giving instructions to warriors along the way to set up for an ambush on the main street.</p><p>“There’s only one ship that we’ve seen,” Sokka fills her in as they move towards the fishmonger’s, “And Aang was captured briefly, so it’s pretty likely it’s the only ship, if that’s any better.”</p><p>“Barely.” She pulls Sokka down an alley between the buildings. “But thank you for the intel. Now boost me.”</p><p>Sokka does, easily boosting her to roof level, where she climbs on and keeps low. “Stay down there,” she tells Sokka, “And keep quiet until you see a good moment. Try not to yell too much.” Sokka was a loud person and it was going to take more than one lesson to make her good at stealth.</p><p>To Suki’s pleased surprise, Sokka accepts the instruction with a nod.</p><p>She settles down to watch and wait, taking note of where the other warriors have hidden themselves.</p><p>Suki takes a deep breath to soothe the bubbling rage when she sees Fire Nation on komodo-rhinos make their way through her home. As if they have any right.</p><p>She lets her anger sharpen her senses, but not cloud her mind. She signals to her warriors. Wait until they have the invaders surrounded.</p><p>A pair of her warriors see an opening and jump from their roof, slamming a rhino-rider to he floor. The rest of them make their move in the following chaos. </p><p>Suki goes for the one in the centre of their formation, the leader with the mostly bald head. She brings down a footsoldier on the way with a simple kick, but it's enough of a distraction that the leader notices her and fends her off with a kick to her midriff. Suki falls to the ground, winded.</p><p> </p><p>A flare of orange alerts her to the fire coming her way. She's scrambling to get up and get out of its path.</p><p>She would have failed, but Sokka appears, sweeping the fire to the side with a single motion of her fans.</p><p>"Thanks," is all that comes out of Suki's mouth before her mind can get back on track and get her up and moving again.</p><p>"Anytime," says Sokka, not looking away from their enemy and quickly dashing off to another opening as the fight moves on, ever changing like a stormy sea. Opponents change in a moment as other warriors step in to take their opportunities or fall back when they're overwhelmed. </p><p>Overall, Suki and her warriors are being pushed back. The fires are spreading quickly over the wood and thatch houses, and they are outnumbered.</p><p>"I have to go!" Sokka calls to her. </p><p>Suki pulls her out of the way of an oncoming pike and leads her around the back of the houses.</p><p>"They're following us. If we go, then they will too," Sokka explains further. It's then that the groans of Aang's flying bison become clear over the sounds of battle. "Do you want your armour back?"</p><p>"Keep it," Suki insists, even though Sokka looks fully prepared to strip down.</p><p>"I, uh, threw the fans at someone, so they'll be about somewhere."</p><p>"Sokka!" says Suki, mildly exasperated because what does any of this matter?</p><p>"And I'm sorry, really, for how I behaved to you and the other warriors."</p><p>"Sokka," says Suki, more fondly. "Look at me, you're a good warrior," she says it because Sokka hasn't had anyone to tell her that in a long while. "And one day you'll be a great one," because Sokka had shown she was nothing if not determined. "<em>Even if</em> you're a girl."</p><p>Sokka's bashfulness can't keep back the grin that springs onto her face. "You really think so?"</p><p>Suki takes both her hands. "Yes, Sokka. I know it."</p><p>Sokka's eyes seem to sparkle with happiness and she says, "Thanks, Suki," in a slightly choked voice. She squeezes Suki's hands tight.</p><p>The bison lands next to them in a whoosh of air.</p><p>"Let's go, Sokka!" Katara calls.</p><p>Sokka nods and starts to move. Their hands only part when Sokka moves too far. "We won't forget the help you gave us!" Sokka calls as she climbs up the side of the great animal and into the saddle.</p><p>"Go!" Suki urges, because the fighting is still close. "Be safe!" she adds, which will be a hard task for them to manage, and she doesn’t know why she said it.</p><p>They are already well into the air and soon out of hearing range. They pause over the harbour for Aang to taunt the unagi some more, and somehow get it to spray water over the village. This has the dual effect of dousing the flames and alerting the invaders to their leaving.</p><p>Sure enough, the soldiers fall back to the ship once they realise the avatar has left, just like Sokka said.</p><p>"Let them go," Suki calls to the warriors. "Check the houses for casualties, someone find the healer."</p><p>Suki watches the bison fade to a dot in the sky. The ship packs up and leaves the harbour quicker than she thought possible.</p><p>"We'll remember the help you gave, too," she murmurs at the sky, and hopes that she'll have the chance to see them again.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0004"><h2>4. Chapter 4</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Stuck in a forest with Jet. Great.</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Well, this chapter was like pulling teeth and I never want to look at it again.</p><p>Please note that Sokka is pretty sheltered and I imagine whatever equivalent of sex education she had was along the lines of "this is how to make a baby. We need more babies" because they need to get more people from somewhere.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>They have a system now. Katara will do the rice and vegetables, and Sokka will catch, prepare and cook any meat she can. Aang tends to disappear for the duration, but it’s better than him watching and then feeling too queasy for dinner. Even if he can’t eat the meat, he understands that the more food they have, the longer their supplies will last. He also understands that Sokka will never give up meat.</p><p>Although Katara does miss Aang’s presence, she is quietly pleased with the immeasurable comfort she finds in cooking with her sister. The meditative rhythm of chopping as Sokka strips the guts out of a fish. It’s the sounds – and smells – of home, and she’s missed this, she’s missed having her sister with her, ever since her sister became her – how did Aang put it? – her sister-brother.</p><p>Feeling the warmth of closeness to Sokka, Katara puts her knife down and looks over at her. She’s still engrossed in the fish, so Katara reaches over and pulls lightly on the end of her wolftail.</p><p>Sokka jerks her head away. “What? Have I got something in my hair?” She goes to feel her hair but realises her hands are covered in fish blood. “What is it? Can you get it out?”</p><p>“No, there’s nothing in your hair,” Katara says with amusement, “I was just thinking.”</p><p>“About my hair?” Sokka looks at her like there’s something wrong with her.</p><p>“Yeah,” says Katara, “I was thinking you could grow it longer again. Now you know that girls can be warriors.”</p><p>“What? What are you talking about? I’ve always known girls can be warriors.” Well, that’s laughable.</p><p>“Oh yeah?” says Katara, “Then what was all that you were saying back on Kyoshi island?”</p><p>Sokka’s face scrunches up. “That wasn’t anything. I was just saying stuff.”</p><p>“About how girls couldn’t be warriors,” Katara fills in for him. “Which you now know they can.”</p><p>“Well, alright.” Sokka gives in surprisingly quickly. “But what’s that got to do with my hair?”</p><p>“I’m just saying you could grow it out, now that you know you can look like a girl and still be a warrior.”</p><p>“This is a warrior’s wolftail!” says Sokka, pointing at it quick enough to flick fish guts in her face. She barely flinches, but the slight look of disgust gives away that she noticed.</p><p>“The Kyoshi Warriors all had longer hair,” Katara points out.</p><p>“I’m not a Kyoshi Warrior,” Sokka counter-points. “I’m a warrior of the Southern Water Tribe.”</p><p>“Southern Water Tribe warriors are all men, though,” says Katara.</p><p>“I’m not,” says Sokka.</p><p>Katara sighs because Sokka is being deliberately obtuse. “But you always look like a boy, and you don’t have to because girls can be warriors too.”</p><p>“I look like a warrior,” Sokka insists. “And I am a girl, most of the time.”</p><p>“That’s what I mean!” say Katara, vindicated, “You should be a girl all of the time.”</p><p>“I am a girl all of the time too!”</p><p>“You literally just said you weren’t,” says Katara. This was ridiculous, but Sokka enjoys arguing for the sake of it (she usually makes marginally better points).</p><p>“What do you know?” asks Sokka, “Anyway, none of that’s got anything to do with my hair.”</p><p>“It means you can grow it longer,” says Katara.</p><p>“I don’t want to,” Sokka replies, standing up with the gutted and de-scaled fish in her hands. “You should hurry up with the vegetables, the fish’ll cook way quicker.” Sokka leaves to go wash the fish in the stream.</p><p>Katara feels like she’s both won and not won the argument. She wasn’t even expecting to start an argument, it was just a suggestion. Well, Sokka’s stubborn, but she usually realises when she’s being an idiot. Katara has enough faith in her sister for that.</p><p>---</p><p>So, here’s the thing, to go back to an earlier thought, the parallels between Aang and a bunch of five-year-olds keeps growing. The main difference being that, after long enough in their frozen homeland, warrior training soon becomes the most interesting thing to do with only potty breaks as the real competition for attention.</p><p>But when the potential distraction is the entire world? It starts getting difficult. Then add in Aang with his skewed definitions of basic concepts like ‘fun’ and ‘danger’, and the whole task starts looking a lot more impossible.</p><p>Katara’s mostly on her side, at least. Alarmingly it’s not helping as much as she hoped.</p><p>And, alright, so, the trips aren’t all completely useless. They find one of Aang’s old friends who isn’t dead, which, well… Sokka can’t help but think (very quietly, to herself) that Aang’s calibre of friend has really gone up since the whole iceberg incident, but she’s not so heartless as to begrudge him a single old friend. Heck, if they found more old friends of Aang’s she’d be very happy for him. She’d just do her best to be happy for him from afar, because the past seems like it was a pretty weird place.</p><p>And then sometimes Katara gets a bee in her bonnet about helping people. Never mind that their whole journey is to ultimately help people in the long run because the state they’re in at the moment, they’re not going to get very far with taking on the Fire Nation. But no, Katara sees a village of sad people and they have to stop and help.</p><p>And alright, they really helped those earthbenders and made a difference by breaking them out of their prison camp, and Sokka doesn’t regret it, it was a really worthwhile thing. But also there are going to be a lot of villages with sad people and handsome boys who make sad eyes at Katara and she just <em>has</em> to help and then they just ask her to come along with them.</p><p>Which is another thing! If every boy they come across starts making moon eyes at Katara, Sokka’s going to have a real hard time keeping all the disgusted noises in (and Katara thinks it’s bad <em>now</em>). There comes a point when it starts getting insulting, you know? That everyone has eyes for your sister and completely overlooks the other perfectly fine girl standing there. And alright, Sokka’s not stupid, she knows she looks a little (a lot) more like a boy than most girls, and boys don’t really like boys, so they probably don’t like girls that look like boys.</p><p>But! On the other hand, she’s hardly <em>ugly</em>. And her jokes are good enough to make up for anything in the looks department. This is some top-notch sarcasm she’s peddling! And she can fish, and hunt. Like, she can provide a never-ending supply of meat, what boy wouldn’t love that? She’d definitely go for that if she were a boy. She’d go for it as a girl. Meat’s a universal love.</p><p>But then there’s Jet.</p><p>Ugh.</p><p>Jet.</p><p>Somehow it’s more insulting that he’s the only boy who’s winked at her. <em>After </em>he’d just taken out the Fire Nation soldier she was perfectly poised to whack over the head with her club. He looked over his shoulder and <em>winked</em>. Did he think he was cute? Did he think that being infuriating and smarmy was attractive?</p><p>And for the love of everything Sokka’s ever loved, why did Katara actually seem to think he <em>was—</em></p><p>“Sokka, what are you sulking about now?” Katara asks with some really unnecessary attitude thank-you-very-much.</p><p>“Thinking, Katara, it’s called thinking,” Sokka explains.</p><p>Katara rolls her eyes. “What are you thinking about with such a sour look on your face, then?”</p><p>“Oh, I don’t know,” says Sokka (seriously, top of the line sarcasm here), “About how we haven’t got time to hang out in treehouses. About how we can’t stop every time a boy flutters their eyelashes at you.” Sokka continues to talk through Katara’s affronted noise, “About how there’s something off about Jet and I don’t think we should stick around to find out what.”</p><p>Katara snorts. “You mean that he’s a better fighter than you?”</p><p>Sokka gives her a flat stare. “Whatever. You don’t have believe me, but you gotta admit we haven’t got time to hang around here when we should be getting to the North Pole.”</p><p>Katara sniffs. (Ha! She can’t deny it!) “Fine, Sokka. You’ll get your way in the end. So at least try to have a less sour face the entire time we’re here?”</p><p>Sokka scrunches up her nose. Her face can and will do whatever it likes!</p><p>Katara rolls her eyes and leaves Sokka to it. Frankly, the face did its job.</p><p>---</p><p>Jet continues to be just… just not quite right. She can’t explain what it is about him, exactly, because it’s not just because he’s a dick. Sokka’s instincts are telling her not to trust him at all, even a little bit.</p><p>In the evening, before dinner, the speech Jet gives does nothing to persuade Sokka she’s wrong, despite the cheering and clapping from everyone else. Jet finishes his rabble rousing (Aang and Katara are, of course, roused by it) and climbs down off the table (what would Gran-Gran say?) to sit between Sokka and Katara. How unsubtle.</p><p>Sokka folds her arms and scowls at Jet, and Katara’s fawning. Then in the middle of telling Aang and Katara how great they are and how well they did, Jet turns to Sokka and puts his hand on her shoulder. “You can stay until tomorrow, right?”</p><p>Sokka looks at the hand on her shoulder, looks back at Jet, her eyebrow raised. She pushes the hand off with her arm and stands up. “Nope. We can’t. Thanks for the meal and all, but we’ve got to get moving.” She walks away.</p><p>“Oh but, Sokka,” Jet calls after her, “There’s a mission tomorrow we really need your help on!”</p><p>Sokka pauses.</p><p>“And it’s late,” Katara joins in, “We might as well stay and sleep with a roof over our heads for once.”</p><p>Sokka looks at them both. (Was Jet always sitting that close to Katara?) Jet is doing a very good job of not looking smug, even though he must be feeling it what with Katara playing right into his hands. Katara is just looking hopeful and, oh, <em>fine.</em> “Fine, we’ll stay the night, and leave tomorrow after the mission.” Jet did say he needed her after all, and far be it from her to deny resistance against the Fire Nation.</p><p>Katara smiles and usually that would make Sokka glad, but she just feels uneasy. It’s fine, they’ll sleep, do whatever needs doing tomorrow and then leave. Aang and Katara both know they can’t hang around too long.</p><p>---</p><p>Katara comes to bed late and Sokka can finally relax. Aang is already asleep, actually tired out from flying around the treetops, followed by a good meal. Sokka has been lying awake, her gut not letting her sleep until she knows where everyone is. Katara steps carefully over Sokka and slips into the bedroll, clearly intent on not waking anyone.</p><p>Sokka considers saying something. Katara must have been with Jet and the thought of it makes something writhe in Sokka’s chest that she can’t quite place. But the brief glimpse Sokka got of Katara’s face showed she was smiling, no tears. It’s fine. They’ll leave tomorrow and everything here will soon be a memory and whatever happened won’t matter. This time tomorrow there’ll be miles between them and Jet’s unsettling intensity and it’ll be fine.</p><p> Sokka shifts, checking that Katara hadn’t knocked Boomerang out of reach, before she settles again, facing the door. Just one night, then they can go.</p><p>---</p><p> Sokka is never ignoring her gut again.</p><p>She scrambles down from the trees as Jet and his whole crew gang up on an old man, a ‘Fire Nation man’ (the dangers of wearing red in the Earth Kingdom). He’s so old he would have been left home when the warriors left, and really, anyone who’s managed to survive that long deserves some respect. At the very least deserves to not be pushed to the ground and threatened.</p><p>Sokka speeds up when Jet pulls his <em>way too intense</em> schtick. Jet’s foot comes back, readying for a kick (to the old man’s <em>head?</em>) and Sokka scrambles to get her club hooked under his foot and stop him landing the blow.</p><p>And now all that intensity is aimed at her.</p><p>“Search him!” Jet calls to the others before advancing on Sokka. Sokka plants her feet and doesn’t let herself be pushed back. “This man is Fire Nation!”</p><p>“This feels wrong!” Sokka insists.</p><p>Jet leans even closer. Sokka can feel his breath on her face as he says, “Remember who killed your mother.”</p><p>Sokka bristles. How does he know— oh, of course. Katara.</p><p>“Remember why you fight,” Jet continues, pushing further into Sokka’s personal space and, dammit, she steps back. Probably because she’s used to dealing with normal people.</p><p>“I get the feeling we fight for very different reasons, Jet,” Sokka says, though it doesn’t feel as strong as she intended when she’s literally on her back foot.</p><p>“We got his stuff!” Smellerbee calls from where they’ve been robbing the old man.</p><p>“Great, let’s go.” Jet’s attention leaves her and she feels like she can breathe again. They walk off, leaving the man on his knees and Sokka dithering.</p><p>“Come on, Sokka,” Jet calls like she’s an errant polar-dog.</p><p>The old man is looking up at her, still scared. Sokka hesitates. She should help him, right? But he is still Fire Nation. But he didn’t deserve this and he clearly has trouble moving. She dithers more, but ultimately decides to follow after Jet. She can’t lose sight of what’s important, and that’s to get Katara and Aang and get out of this forest.</p><p>---</p><p>When they get back to base, the first thing Sokka does is call Katara and Aang into their room. They respond gratifyingly quickly (they haven’t started <em>completely</em> disregarding everything she says yet). Sokka explains what happened while she packs up their things. “Jet beat up an old man, just because he thought he was Fire Nation. That’s what the mission was: wait in the trees and terrorise the locals.”</p><p>“He what?” asks Katara, gratifyingly shocked. “Was there a reason for Jet to attack?”</p><p>“Yeah,” says Sokka, “He looked Fire Nation, that was it. Even though he was a harmless old man.”</p><p>“That doesn’t sound like Jet.”</p><p>“You met him yesterday,” says Sokka, “How can you know?”</p><p>Katara looks ready to argue, but then nods thoughtfully. “I’ll ask him, he should answer for what he’s done.”</p><p>“Alright,” Sokka sighs, not really liking the idea, she’d rather just leave, but she can already see the righteous set of Katara’s shoulders. “I’ll pack, and we can leave when you get back.”</p><p>Katara marches out, tailed by Aang.</p><p>When she marches back, not ten minutes later, Sokka already doesn’t like what she’s seeing. Jet’s with her and Aang, and they all look too chummy with each other for the discussion to have gone in Sokka’s favour. She shouldn’t have let them go, she shouldn’t have let Jet get near Katara again.</p><p>“Sokka, it was all just a misunderstanding,” says Katara with assurance.</p><p>Sokka stands up straight and glares at Jet, who doesn’t even look smug. He is frustratingly good. “Really? Was it a friendly threat to beat up an old man?”</p><p>Jet steps forward. “Look Sokka, we found this knife on that ‘old man’.” He holds up a wicked looking dagger.</p><p>“When?” Sokka asks, “I didn’t see that knife on him.”</p><p>“You were kind of distracted arguing with me,” says Jet.</p><p>“Even with a knife, that old man would be no danger to you.” And frankly, with these guys looking to attack people minding their own business, travelling with a knife would be sensible.</p><p>“That’s what they want you to think. Look.” He flips the dagger over so it’s hilt up, and flicks open the end of the hilt with his thumb. “That’s for poison. He was a Fire Nation spy.”</p><p>Sokka narrows her eyes at him. “Why would a Fire Nation spy wear Fire Nation red?”</p><p>“I don’t know, arrogance?” Jet suggests, “The same reason they think they can burn down our villages and get away with it.”</p><p>What a cop out of an answer. But Katara nods and Sokka can feel the frustration boiling inside her. “He’s lying, Katara! I never saw that knife, and I was there the whole time they were trying to beat him up!”</p><p>“Sokka,” Katara says in a conciliatory tone, and Sokka’s hackles rise even further. “You’ve been wrong about these things before. You do get kind of paranoid sometimes.”</p><p>“Paranoid?” Sokka asks, “When?”</p><p>“You thought Aang was a Fire Nation spy,” Katara says, and Aang nods sadly.</p><p>Sokka huffs angrily. “Aang at least doesn’t look Fire Nation. A Fire Nation spy wouldn’t look Fire Nation!”</p><p>“You wouldn’t think a fragile old man would be a spy either,” says Jet, “That’s why you’ve got to be on the lookout for anyone.”</p><p>And even though Jet is sort of agreeing with Sokka’s motivation for suspecting Aang (which makes her feel so wrong) Katara nods like Jet has just made the best argument. And Sokka just explodes. “You can’t just agree with him because he makes you feel all fluttery, Katara!” she yells.</p><p>Everyone in the room freezes and Katara goes a deep red, first it’s embarrassment, then anger. And oh, Sokka has lost this conversation and she’s never going to get it back. “You just can’t deal with the fact that Jet is a better fighter and leader than you are!” Katara accuses, “You’re Jealous.”</p><p>Sokka sputters, because even though on an intellectual level she knows this isn’t helping her cause at all, her jealous of Jet? Suki deserved her jealousy. Jet’s just a prick. “I’m not jealous of Jet!”</p><p>“And you’re jealous that he likes me and not you!” Katara finishes decisively.</p><p>“What?” Sokka shrieks, her voice getting out of her control. Has Katara not got eyes?</p><p>“I’m so sorry about my sister,” Katara says, turning away and walking with Jet out of the room. Sokka doesn’t listen to his reply, she doesn’t think she could take it. “Come on, Aang!” Katara calls back.</p><p>“What did you mean about Katara feeling fluttery?” Aang asks him with wide, worried eyes. Poor tiny, oblivious Aang.</p><p>Sokka sighs. “Don’t worry about it, Aang.” She flexes her hand, really wanting to throw her boomerang to let out some energy. “We’ll be leaving soon.” And whatever Jet’s got planned for them will show Jet’s true nature, she’s certain. She just doesn’t want it to come to that.</p><p>“Right,” says Aang. He smiles apologetically as he follows after Katara.</p><p>He’s going to need to get better at confrontation before he can become a good Avatar. Or, you know, fight in a war.</p><p>Sokka growls in frustration and snatches up her boomerang. Time to let off some steam. And then she’ll find out what Jet is up to.</p><p>---</p><p>Turns out there’s not much time for steam-letting as Jet is soon making moves. Sokka chooses to believe it’s because he knows she’s onto him. He’s having Fire Nation barrels moved out of their camp, and she knows if she asked they’d say that they’re putting them somewhere safe or whatever. So Sokka doesn’t ask, she follows.</p><p>She stalks them quiet as she can, with skills she’s practiced while hunting. Like most things recently, she’s self-taught, the leaves and sticks on the ground do not behave like snow and ice, and sound travels differently in a forest. She does her best, as always, she can’t do anything else.</p><p>She catches up to the group as Jet tells everyone what he’s planning, and Sokka is both appalled and more vindicated than she ever thought. She’d been expecting morally dubious raids on the town’s supplies, generally being dangerous to the locals, perhaps an attack on the Fire Nation soldiers that would bring backlash on the townspeople.</p><p>But to blow the dam? To wash everyone in the valley away? Jet’s worse than even she suspected.</p><p>She’s in a horrified sort of stupor, considering the ramifications of Jet’s proposed action. That’s what she blames for being snuck up on by Pipsqueak – the largest of all Jet’s people – and dragged out of the bush she’s crouching in by her hair (and Katara thinks she should grow it even longer, yeah right!).</p><p>“Look what I found,” says Pipsqueak.</p><p>“You can’t go through with this. The number of people you’ll kill!” Sokka blurts at them all. But she’s hardly trusted among this lot.</p><p>Jet smirks. “Guys, get this blasting jelly to the dam. I’ll get everything else set up.” To Pipsqueak, he jerks his head towards the trees. “Smellerbee, with us.”</p><p>Pipsqueak holds her arms behind her back and forces her to follow Jet off to somewhere. Between glancing around for anything useful, tracking everyone’s movements and silently fuming at everyone there, Sokka is kicking herself for not telling anyone she was going. Stupid, you don’t go wandering off into the tundra without letting anyone know, clearly it’s a good policy everywhere.</p><p>They reach wherever Jet was leading them to. Just looks like another bit of forest to Sokka.</p><p>Jet turns with unnecessary flourish. “Sokka, I’m glad you decided to join us.”</p><p>Pipsqueak releases Sokka’s arms and she pulls them back to herself, rubbing them. She sends him a nasty look over her shoulder for good measure. She knows she’s no safer – she’s surrounded by people with knives – but Jet wants to put a bit more theatre on, so Sokka probably has a little breathing space. “I knew there was something off with you,” she says to get it off her chest, “But I never thought you would be this awful.”</p><p>“We need to rid that town of the Fire Nation, Sokka. That’s what we’re doing.” Spirits, he says it with so much conviction. Does he actually believe all this is for good?</p><p>“There are people living there, Jet! Mothers and fathers and children.”</p><p>“We can’t win without making some sacrifices,” Jet replies. Sokka is almost (<em>almost</em>) horrified speechless.</p><p>“Those aren’t your sacrifices to make!” she says, arms a-flail. “I see why you’ve been lying to Aang and Katara this whole time, now.”</p><p>“They don’t understand the demands of war,” says Jet, “Not like you and I do.” He smiles like Sokka could possibly agree to any of this. Like there’s some kind of understanding between them. He approaches into Sokka’s personal space again. This time, she will not give way to him. Jet takes Sokka’s chin in his fingertips and tilts her head up. “We both know there are more dangers out there than they’ll ever see.”</p><p>Sokka jerks her head out of Jets grasp and waves her hands in front of her, batting Jet’s hand out of the way. “We both know you’ll manipulate or kill anyone to get what you want,” she sneers at him.</p><p>Jet sighs and shakes his head at the floor. “I was hoping you’d have an open mind. But I can see you’ve made your choice.” Suddenly Jet’s hook swords are drawn and he catches her arms with the hooks (she should have stepped back!). It’s terrifying and unnecessary like everything about Jet. “I can’t let you warn Aang and Katara.” He pushes Sokka back into the large and solid form of Pipsqueak. “Take her for a walk. A long walk.”</p><p>Sokka struggles as Pipsqueak takes control of her arms and Smellerbee ties her hands behind her back. “Think about what you’re doing to all those people, people like you!” Sokka pleads for some sanity in any of the people there.</p><p>“They live with the Fire Nation, they’re nothing like us,” says Jet, “We’re going to win a great victory against the Fire Nation here today, Sokka. And the rest of them? They deserve the same fate as the Fire Nation that they love.”</p><p>---</p><p>They’ve been walking in silence a while before Sokka decides she’s not a walking in silence kinda gal. “So, what’s a long walk?” she asks nonchalantly, “Does it end with you slitting my throat?”</p><p>“Jet’s not the monster you think he is,” says Smellerbee.</p><p>“Oh okay,” Sokka nods in mocking understanding, “He doesn’t slit people’s throats, he just drowns entire towns. You’re right, not monstrous at all.” Sokka looks around at their surroundings, takes in anything that might be useful. “How can you agree with him?” she asks her captors. A talking captor is a distracted captor.</p><p>“He’s never led us wrong,” says Pipsqueak, “We’re all still here.”</p><p>“Oh sure, <em>you’re</em> fine.” Sokka rolls her eyes hard enough that she can be sure people walking behind her can see it. “Just fine, living in the trees attacking everyone who enters. That’s gonna end well.”</p><p>“The Fire Nation destroyed our homes and our families,” says Smellerbee, “This is all we have now, and we won’t let anyone take it from us.”</p><p>“Well sure, I get that part, believe me.” Sokka tries to gesture as she talks to really punctuate how idiotic she thinks they’re being, but unfortunately her hands are still tied. “It’s the taking homes and families from other people that I’m struggling with. You know how much that hurts, how can you do it to other people?” Right there, through that gap in the trees, there are some of those animal traps set up. “Though, I guess if there’s no one left to miss the town or mourn any of the people then it’s probably not so bad, right?” One, two, three of them. Enough to, at the very least, seriously hinder anyone chasing after her. “I wonder if that’s what the Fire Nation thought before they attacked your homes. That it would be better if they just killed everyone.” Tui and La, or anyone who’s listening, if they can grant her just the tiniest bit of good luck now, she will forgive all the times she’s had nothing but bad luck. “Didn’t succeed though, did they? I wonder if Jet can do killing better than the Fire Nation does.”</p><p>“This isn’t the same,” says Smellerbee.</p><p>Sokka smiles over her shoulder. “It’s a bit too similar though, isn’t it?”</p><p>“You don’t know what it’s been like for us,” Smellerbee insists.</p><p>Sokka shrugs. “I don’t think it really matters what it’s been like for you, when it comes to killing children.”</p><p>“Stop talking.” Pipsqueak gives her a shove that sends her stumbling. “You’re just trying to make us doubt ourselves.”</p><p>Sokka hauls her upright once she’s certain she’s got her balance back. “Ah, I’m just blowing off some steam.” She turns to face them and grins. “You doubting yourselves would be an added bonus.”</p><p>“I said shut up!”</p><p>Sokka laughs. “People have been trying to shut me up for—” She stops and gasps, a look of horror coming over her face. “What is <em>that</em>?”</p><p>Pipsqueak and Smellerbee turn to look and Sokka dashes off in the other direction.</p><p>She jumps the animal traps. One, two, three, keeps her eyes peeled for more. She listens out for what’s happening behind her and please, please, please, just this once. She only looks over her shoulder once she hears the snap of a trap setting off, and sees Pipsqueak trapped in a cage, before another snap and Smellerbee gets stuck in another cage.</p><p>Spirits, all is forgiven. The traps are good enough for baboons and they’re good enough for a pair of easily-led idiots. A pair of easily-led idiots who tie shoddy knots.w</p><p>---</p><p>Sokka runs. She follows the edge of the valley and doesn’t stop once she’s broken past the treeline. She thinks as she runs. She could go to the dam and stop them blowing it up. That would be ideal. But that would require both getting there, and being able to stop a group of fighters that easily outnumber her, and in some cases outclass her.</p><p>She is not good enough for that. If Aang and Katara were with her, maybe (except Aang and Katara would insist on it, the idealistic idiots. They’d insist on doing the big, risky, hero thing and they’d succeed because they’re faster and more powerful and better trained. Aang is anyway.). But Sokka is alone, and Sokka can’t be the big hero on her own.</p><p>Jet was right, sacrifices need to be made in war. Sokka is willing to sacrifice the town to a flood for a chance to save the people in it.</p><p>It’s still risky. Jet will blow the dam as soon as possible, if he’s smart. And he is, he’s not lacking in intelligence, or ability, or talent, or charisma. And alright, maybe there’s a little bit of jealousy, but it’s mainly the sting of her friends and family believing him over her that’s driving that particular thorn into her side.</p><p>Speaking of thorns in sides, she is getting one heck of a stitch.</p><p>She jogs into the town, holding her side and breathing heavily. “You have to leave!” she says but, oh wow, she needs to get her breath back. She takes a few pants and imagines there are cracks in the ice beneath the village and everyone needs to get out before they are dragged down into the freezing sea.</p><p>“You need to get to higher ground!” she yells with a burst of urgent adrenaline. “Get out of town, the valley is going to flood! You all need to go!”</p><p>People are looking at her, but no one is listening to her. There’s a small stall of fresh vegetables on the side of the street and Sokka goes to it and tries to drag it towards the town gate. “You all need to leave, the dam is going to break!”</p><p>“Hey, get off!” The stall trader goes for her and Sokka jumps back out of his reach.</p><p>“Please, you have to get out of here, the dam is about to go,” she begs him.</p><p>“What are you talking about, boy?” the trader asks her.</p><p>“The dam is going to break, and the valley will flood and you’re all in danger!”</p><p>“They check that dam every month,” says an old lady across the street. “It’s not going to break.”</p><p>“No! Some people are going to blow it up! You all need to get out of here!” Sokka has become a spectacle to stare at, not someone to be taken seriously. Again! It’s so frustrating! (Jet could probably get them to listen to him)</p><p>Sokka shakes her head. “Come on, you have to move!” she grabs the arms of some people in the gathering crowd and pulls at them.</p><p>“What’s going on here?” Some armoured guards jog towards the commotion that Sokka is making. “Let go of those people, what are you doing?”</p><p>Well, if she can get the guards to believe her, they’ll be able to evacuate the town. “Someone is going to blow up the dam and flood the town and you need to get everyone out of here.”</p><p>“Who’s going to blow it up?” The head guard asks</p><p>“Those kids in the woods who’ve been attacking people.” Sokka explains, keeping careful distance between her and the guard. “They stole some blasting jelly from some Fire Nation supplies and they’re going to use it to blow up the dam and wipe this town off the map.”</p><p>“How do you know that?”</p><p>“Because they just told me!”</p><p>“Alright, son,” The guard approaches her and Sokka steps back. “You’ve had your fun, but give it up. We won’t tolerate you disturbing the peace anymore.”</p><p>“I’m not lying! You are all in danger!”</p><p>The head guard (let’s call him Ed… because he’s the ‘ed guard) sighs. “Fine, take him in.” He instructs the other two guards with him.</p><p>“No!” Sokka protests, stepping back further. “You need to get to high ground or you’ll die!”</p><p>One of the guards lurches forward and Sokka sidesteps, directly into the other one, who catches her wrist and pulls it behind her back.</p><p>“He’s right!” someone calls from the crowd. It parts to show the old man Jet had attacked in the woods. Sokka has never been so relieved to see such a craggy old face that wasn’t Gran-gran’s.</p><p>“We should listen to him.” The man hobbles up to them. Sokka blinks a few times, because hearing someone else say that unexpectedly hits her right in her emotional weakness. “This boy was with the thugs in the forest when they attacked me. He stopped them, he stopped them from beating me.”</p><p>“What were you doing with those kids?” Ed asks, suspicious.</p><p>“We’re travelling,” Sokka explains, “Me, my sister and friend, we’re travelling through and they gave us a meal and a place to sleep. We had no idea what they were doing to the locals, and I came here as soon as I heard what they had planned for the dam.”</p><p>“Where’s your sister and friend.”</p><p>“I don’t know,” Sokka barely has to feign the worry in her eyes as she looks towards the forest. “They weren’t with me when I found out and I came straight here.” She looks up into Ed’s eyes. She’s never managed the seal-pup eyes as well as Katara, and Aang quick frankly puts them both to shame, but she still tries. “Please sir, the whole town is in danger, and all you need to do is get everyone to high ground.”</p><p>Ed looks thoughtful. One of the other guards leans in. “You know, that camp in the forest was attacked, and they <em>did</em> lose some… supplies.”</p><p>Ed sighs again. “Fine, we’ll evacuate. There’s nothing to lose but a walk up the hill. But if you’re lying…” Ed points at Sokka and she holds up her hands.</p><p>“If I’m lying, you can do whatever you want. Because I’m not lying.”</p><p>---</p><p>The town bursts into a flurry of orders and activity. Every door is knocked on and everyone is told to gather what they can and get to the town gate.</p><p>A small trickle of people walking that way turns into a steady flow leading out of the town and wow, Sokka needs to stop using water metaphors (dam them up? No! No. Stop it) because every thought of the dam sends a stab of panic through her and makes her look over at the dam every two minutes. She can’t even see anything over there, everything looks fine. Everything is deceptively fine.</p><p>It doesn’t really help her case that nothing looks wrong, and she gets more than one glare from townsfolk whose day she’s interrupted. But even grudgingly, they still evacuate. Sokka helps who she can (who will let her) those with slightly too much to carry. More than one family is bringing a blanket and a basket of food.</p><p>To be honest, it’s a good idea.</p><p>Sokka eventually leaves the town, helping the man who believed in her up the steep road. He takes small steps, leaning on her the whole way. “M’ name’s Fan,” he tells her when they’re halfway up the side of the valley. “Old Man Fan.”</p><p>“You’re old enough for your name to be Old Man?” Sokka asks and then immediately flails, “Uh, what I mean by that is, uh, nice to meet you! My name’s Sokka.”</p><p>Old Man Fan wheezes and it’s a moment before Sokka realises that’s a laugh. “Sokka huh? That’s an interestin’ name.”</p><p>“I’m not from around here,” says Sokka.</p><p>“Well, I’m sure glad you were travellin’ through. Don’t know what would’ve happened to me if you hadn’t been there.”</p><p>“Mmm,” says Sokka. She’d done the bare minimum. Sure she’d stopped Jet kicking him, but they still robbed him, and she’d let Jet go about like he’d done nothing. She wasn’t able to stop him, wasn’t <em>strong enough</em>. Just like she isn’t able to stop the dam blowing up. Anyone unlucky enough to have to rely on her will just have to settle for a sub-par rescue. Better than no rescue, of course, but she’s hardly the Avatar, and she’s got none of the raw power of Katara. She wants Katara to get to the North Pole and find a teacher, she really does. But she also knows that no matter how much warrior training she finds there, Sokka will never be a match for Katara the waterbender.</p><p>Oh hey, is that a lump in her throat? She needs to think about something else, pronto.</p><p>“Thank you for backing me up,” she tells Old Man Fan. “They would never have believed me without you.”</p><p>Old Man Fan shrugs a shoulder. “Not exactly a hardship to help you save all my friends and family.”</p><p>Sokka nods, pauses, then says, “You believe me, though.” That’s the important part of this all.</p><p>“I do. You haven’t got the face of a liar.”</p><p>Sokka looks at him. “What?”</p><p>Old Man Fan gestures to his own face. “It moves too much. I can see everything there.”</p><p>Sokka sniffs indignantly. “I can lie, I’m great at lying!”</p><p>One of the nearby guards eyes her suddenly.</p><p>“Uh, I mean, when the situation calls for it and most definitely not right now. I am all truth right now!”</p><p>Old Man Fan wheezes. “You’re so bad at lying, you’re bad at telling the truth too!”</p><p>“That makes no sense,” Sokka huffs. She guides him to a rock they can sit on and wait for whatever will happen to come to pass. Old Man Fan continues to wheeze to himself, but mostly they sit in silence.</p><p>Jitters rise up in Sokka the longer they wait. She can feel the eyes of the townsfolk at her back, and are those guards gathering near her? But she can hardly leave, the forest is on the other side of the valley and it would be too risky to cross now.</p><p>But what if she’s wrong? What if Jet doesn’t detonate as soon as possible? What if he waits so long the townsfolk decide to head back, and <em>then</em> he blows it? How long can Sokka keep them up here? What if Katara and Aang find out what Jet’s up to and stop him before he can go through with it? Then what trouble would she be in (And how pointless would she be)? She wishes it would just happen so that the uncertainty will end.</p><p>A boom echoes across the valley and Sokka immediately takes back her wish. It’s too late, though. The cracks of the dam failing follow soon after, and water begins to gush through the newly made gaps.</p><p>Some of the people around her scream, even more of them swear. Prolifically. Sokka learns a few new words.</p><p>“I wish I wasn’t right,” she says quietly to herself.</p><p>Old Man Fan takes her hand and squeezes it, but neither of them look away from the oncoming rush of water. More screams go up as it hits the town and demolishes parts like it’s made of sticks. Even the Fire Nation is powerless in the face of some things.</p><p>They all watch in horror as the initial onslaught dies down. Most of the people are caught up in watching their homes wash away, but the guards are talking amongst themselves. Sokka eyes them discreetly, and she’s not imagining their glances towards her.</p><p>“I have to go,” she tells Old Man Fan. She was on the guards’ side for a while, but she can’t get caught here now. She’s still suspicious to them.</p><p>“Go where? Back to the forest?” They both look towards the forest, on the far side of the newly created river.</p><p>“Yeah…” says Sokka. She hadn’t really thought this far ahead. “My family’s over there, and I need to get back to them.”</p><p>“An’ get away from the guards?” Old Man Fan asks.</p><p>Sokka does not look over at the guards. “Added bonus,” she says.</p><p>“I know you don’t like the Fire Nation,” he says, looking directly at Sokka. She shrugs awkwardly. “I’m glad you could put it aside for my town. Thank you.”</p><p>He sounds so sincere that it’s kind of painful. This isn’t the sort of thing it should be surprising that people help with. “I’m not out to break up families,” she says quietly. No more than she needs to, anyway. She’s as prepared to kill for the cause as she is to die for it.</p><p>“Look here,” Old Man Fan pats her on the arm. “I’ll distract the guards, and you c’n get away in whatever direction you need to.”</p><p>Sokka nods. “Thank you.”</p><p>He winks at her.</p><p>---</p><p>His idea of a distraction ends up being just falling over. It’s surprisingly effective and Sokka will have to remember that for when she gets old and frail. The panicky townfolk add that extra frisson of hysteria that make it easy for Sokka to get to the waterline unnoticed.</p><p>To a normal person, the water would be terrifying, but Sokka is Water Tribe and she can conquer any river.</p><p>Uh.</p><p>Well.</p><p>Correction: she can conquer half a river before Appa notices that she’s struggling her way across on the remains of a market stall.</p><p>“Appa!” she cries before the wave of his landing washes the market stall out of her grip. It doesn’t wash away her gratitude when she finally clambers out of the water onto his back. She’s even grateful for the wet bison smell because it means he’s really here. “Thank the spirits!” she grabs onto his wet fur as best she can – Appa’s saddle is back at the camp. “I swear, you’re getting all the best food for the next week. And all the ear scratches you could want, buddy.”</p><p>Appa rumbles in agreement and swims them back to the forest with strong strokes. Sokka likes to think he realises that she can’t handle a fall as well as Aang can.</p><p>“Alright, buddy,” she says once they’re on dry land. “Think you can find Aang and Katara without flying?”</p><p>Appa grumbles and immediately heads off on his mission.</p><p>“Right, good,” says Sokka, “Didn’t expect such a positive answer, honestly.” She stays low on his back, still not used to riding without the saddle. And, y’know, tree branches.</p><p>---</p><p>Katara’s voice carries well. Sokka isn’t sure if that’s what Appa was following the whole way here, but that’s what clues Sokka in that they’re going in the right direction.</p><p>She can’t hear what’s being said, but there’s some splashing mixed in, and soon enough they break into the clearing.</p><p>“Appa!” says Aang, as always pleased to see the bison. “Why are you so wet?”</p><p>Sokka shuffles to Appa’s flank and slides down from his back.</p><p>“Sokka!” Katara cries, closely echoed by Aang.</p><p>Katara bursts into a run towards Sokka.</p><p>“Woah woah!” Sokka holds up a hand to stop her before she slams into him and she slows. “I’m wet and covered in bison fur.”</p><p>Appa grumbles.</p><p>“I’m just saying, bison fur is for bison, not people.”</p><p>“Like I care!” says Katara as she slams into Sokka and squeezes her in a tight hug. “I thought you’d got hurt, or…” She pulls back. “Did you get hurt?” She looks Sokka up and down.</p><p>“No, no, it’s fine, I’m fine.” Sokka reassures her.</p><p>“None of you could stop my plan!” says a voice Sokka never wants to hear again.</p><p>Katara’s sound of disgust is strong enough to make Sokka proud. Another thing to make Sokka proud, once they round the side of Appa, is the sight of Jet fully iced to a tree. Oh man, she’s slow to catch on, but Katara really comes through once she does.</p><p>“We rid this valley of the Fire Nation!” Jet boasts.</p><p>“Actually,” says Sokka, relishing the moment, “I warned the townspeople and convinced them to evacuate.”</p><p>Katara gasps and gives Sokka another squeeze. Sokka puts her arm around her sister and yeah, this is how it should be. Katara’s on her side, Aang is beaming at her, and Jet’s livid and helpless, barely able to struggle. “How could you, Sokka!” Jet shouts. “We could have won a victory against the Fire Nation today!”</p><p>Sokka sniffs and gives him a disdainful look. She’d kinda thought it would be satisfying to give Jet some juicy details to really rile him up, but now she’s here? “You’re not worth the breath. Come on,” she says to the other two, “We need to pack up and go, and I need some dry clothes.”</p><p>They turn away from Jet, who rages at their retreating backs, unable to do anything. Oh yeah, there’s the satisfaction.</p><p>---</p><p>“You okay, Katara?” Sokka asks. They are well on their way to… away from that forest. The ride has been quiet. Aang is steering Appa and Katara has had her thoughtful face on for too long.</p><p>“Yeah,” says Katara, flicking from thoughtful face to a suspiciously bright smile.</p><p>“If you say so,” says Sokka, doing her best to project ‘not believing it’. Then, she waits. The upside of being trapped on a saddle means that it’s very easy to get some awkward silences going. That’s also a downside, obviously, depends on which end of the awkward you’re on.</p><p>Katara cracks. “I just feel like an idiot for being fooled,” she admits.</p><p>“You <em>were</em> a bit of an idiot—”</p><p>“—oh thanks Sokka, that’s just what I wanted to hear.” Katara crosses her arms and looks away.</p><p>“Oh come on,” Sokka wheedles. She leans closer to get in Katara’s eyeline. “How often am I going to hear you call yourself an idiot.” Katara huffs and Sokka sighs. She raises her hands. “Alright, I’m sorry, I couldn’t resist!” She shuffles a little closer. “But you’re not an idiot for being fooled, you’re only an idiot for ignoring me.”</p><p>Katara pouts for a moment, and then begrudgingly meets Sokka’s eyes. “I think – don’t you dare say anything, Sokka – I think you were right.” Sokka’s lips are sealed tight. “I didn’t want Jet to be wrong because…” She trails off. Sokka waits for the end of the sentence, but it doesn’t come. That’s alright, she won’t force Katara to say it, it <em>is</em> embarrassing.</p><p>“Well,” Sokka starts, she could hold it back, but it’s only fair that she admits something now. “I am a little annoyed that the boys all like you and barely look at me. I’m not that ugly!”</p><p>“No,” Katara agrees, which, thank you, “But if you had longer hair and dressed more like a girl—”</p><p>“Ugh, Kataraaaa.” Sokka flails to the other side of the saddle.</p><p>“But it would help!”</p><p>“Yeah, I know. But…” Sokka folds her arms and looks out into the sky.</p><p>“But what?” asks Katara, “I don’t understand why you don’t want to.”</p><p>Sokka throws her hands up in exasperation. “I don’t understand why you want me to so badly!”</p><p>“I thought we could go back to how it used to be!” says Katara.</p><p>Sokka pauses with a quizzical look on her face. “How it… used to be?”</p><p>“Yes,” says Katara, “When you were still my sister. When you were my sister all the time. I thought we could be like that again.”</p><p>Sokka thinks back to those days, when she had to squeeze in what training Dad would allow around all her chores and she felt so useless, <em>useless</em>, what was the point of chores when the Fire Nation could come kill them all, and she could’ve barely hit them with a boomerang, what was even the <em>point </em>“Oh.” She stops reminiscing. She never likes to do it. “But I… I was kinda miserable back then.”</p><p>“Because you weren’t allowed to be a warrior,” says Katara as she moves to sit by Sokka, “But now you’re allowed to fight and you don’t have to follow those stupid rules the men gave you. You can stop pretending to be a boy!”</p><p>“I’m not pretending!” Sokka snaps. The idea that any of what she is doing, of what she has done, is not real stings her like a scorpion-shark. But Katara is trying to understand, and she it’s in Sokka’s best interest to help with that, no matter how awkward it is (how the tables have turned, not that a table would fit on Appa’s saddle) “I’m… it’s just,” she sighs. Talking isn’t usually this hard. “You <em>know</em> how long it took me to convince Dad to let me fight.”</p><p>“I know, and that was wrong,” agrees Katara, “It should never have taken so long.”</p><p>Sokka has to fight to not rub a hand over her face. Katara loves the ‘should’s and ‘it would be better if’. “It doesn’t matter what should have happened, though,” says Sokka, “I had to fight to learn to fight, and I’m proud of myself for it. I’m proud that I showed them all that I meant it.” Sokka’s voice quietens. “And when they made me a man? It was… it was like the Tribe finally…” Sokka shakes her head. “Ugh, this sounds stupid.”</p><p>“No, Sokka, no it doesn’t.” Katara takes her hand. “Tell me,” she urges.</p><p>Sokka looks into Katara’s eyes, and it reminds her that no matter how much Katara doesn’t really get her, she has always supported her. “It was like… they finally accepted who I was,” Sokka explains. “I was never going to be a good homemaker who could put a parka together just like that. I can be—I <em>will</em> be a good warrior. And I made the Tribe see that, and they accepted me.”</p><p>Katara’s eyes narrow. “But they don’t accept you as a girl.”</p><p>Sokka sighs again and pulls her hand away. “It’s just a word, Katara. Boy, girl, I’m still me.” She presses her hand to her chest. “And I like what I’m doing, I like my hair and my clothes. I don’t want to go back to what it was like before.”</p><p>Katara sits back and fiddles with her hands in her lap. “I guess, I always thought they forced you to change… Do you think you’d be like this if you’d been allowed to fight all along?”</p><p>Sokka shrugs a shoulder. “I don’t know,” she mutters, “And I don’t think it really matters.” They have enough to worry about with what is happening to start thinking about the what-ifs. Sokka’s happy with how she is (mostly. Girl-wise, anyway. Not unhappy enough to want to change).</p><p>“Okay,” says Katara slowly, back to looking thoughtful. “Okay.” Slowly, she smiles at Sokka. It’s a supportive smile, like she used to give when she didn’t understand why Sokka was fighting with Dad so much, but she knew it was important to Sokka.</p><p>“See?” Aang’s head pops up over the rim of the saddle. “I told you talking about it would help!”</p><p>“Yes, Aang.” Katara rolls her eyes (that’s all Aang gets for an ‘I told you so’?), bows facetiously and solemnly intones, “Thank you for your wisdom, Avatar.”</p><p>“Wow,” says Sokka, “You really solve every problem by talking it out, huh?”</p><p>“Wherever possible!” says Aang perkily, “You’ll be surprised how many problems are caused by a miscommunication or how many things you find you have in common with other people.”</p><p>“Uh-huh,” says Sokka, not yet converted to the side of talking about feelings, “Not sure that’s going to work for all your problems, bud, but I will say I feel better now.” Still not converted, though.</p><p>“And you, Katara?” Aang asks.</p><p>“Yeah…” she answers, “Yeah.” The thoughtful look hasn’t been banished completely. “I think I understand more now.” She smiles at Aang.</p><p>Aang beams back. “All in a day’s work for the Avatar!”</p><p>He’s such a goofball, Sokka can’t help but laugh.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>I really appreciate all the kudos and comments. I really do.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0005"><h2>5. Chapter 5</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>The Gaang are still making their way north. They bump into one of the men from the Southern Water Tribe.</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>I did not expect this to become a full chapter, but it did.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>They find a fortune teller, along with a whole village that she’s suckered into believing her. Sokka could respect that, to an extent. She’s travelled in the Earth Kingdom long enough to see that there’s not such a communal fight for survival up here. Some people (not many, there’s a war going on) can dedicate their life to art, and rich people can pay poor people to do all the hard work for them. Even if the poor people are sometimes older than the rich people and actually if the rich people just did their own work it would be much more efficient, and the elderly could be given tasks that wouldn’t break their backs. But y’know, that’s Earth Kingdom problems.</p><p>Anyway, Sokka could respect someone who gets paid to tell idiots what they want to hear. As she understands it, everyone here has to “earn a living”, and telling people what the future holds is about as useful as asking spirits for blessings and Sokka’s been putting up with that her whole life, so fortune telling is clearly just one more idiocy to endure.</p><p>Except, this woman. She’s got the whole town under her thumb. And yeah, the town’s all idiots, obviously, but this woman… Well, there’s a difference between telling people what they want to hear so they stop worrying about things they can’t help, and having them rely on you so much they stop helping themselves. Really, at that point you have a duty of care for the easily fooled.</p><p>It makes Sokka angry. But really, the most annoying thing? Katara is one of the ones fooled. So it’s down to Sokka to save this place from themselves. Except these people are so smug, so self-assured, she doesn’t even think one of Katara’s moving speeches would help. Heck, one of <em>Dad’s</em> speeches probably wouldn’t help these people. They’re so used to having the answers handed to them, they’ve stopped thinking there could be another way and Sokka feels like she’s bashing her head against a brick wall. Bashing her head against an actual brick wall might actually make her feel better (Aang calmly dissuades her from that course of action).</p><p>But actually, what really, truly bugs Sokka? What gets under her skin in a way she can’t shout and flail about and so she doesn’t know what to <em>do</em> with it except for tuck it in with all the other things she’s never found the words for? It’s that Aunt Wu tries to tell her future.</p><p>Sokka has one question and one question alone: will they win the war? But Aunt Wu won’t answer that one. Or, she comes out with some “the war will end” crap which, y’know, is absolutely not an answer to the question. And then Wu comes out with some stuff about fractured love lines and Sokka snatches her hand back. She’s not here to learn about <em>love</em> and <em>romance</em>. Just because Katara is, doesn’t mean that she’s interested.</p><p>She’s a man of the tribe, she can’t have a <em>family</em>, she gave that idea up years ago. Protecting the village, ending the war, that’s all more important than Sokka finding love. She’s a girl who dresses like a boy, she might as well not have a love line. And also, <em>Wu</em>, someone who can clearly read people, if not the future, just decided to push that dagger in a little further.</p><p>“Thanks,” she says, standing up, “I’ve seen enough of what you do.”</p><p>She has to gather herself a moment, tuck the feelings away properly, before leaving back to the others.</p><p>“That was quick!” says Aang.</p><p>“I came to my senses while I was in there,” says Sokka, “Realised I didn’t want to spend time talking to an old fraud.”</p><p>“<em>Sokka</em>,” Katara hisses, “You’re in her house.”</p><p>Sokka shrugs, sits back down and looks around for the snacks, they were the only good thing about this place.</p><p>---</p><p>They eventually save the place from the erupting volcano they planted their village under (all in a day’s work for the Avatar and friends). The subsequent gratitude was lacking. As a place, Sokka would give it a 2/10 and that even that much is based on the snacks. The best part of the whole place is leaving it.</p><p>The best part of their subsequent journey was coming across a Water Tribe boat and following the trail to Bato. Sokka thought he was an hallucination at first and was stuck watching him approach them, until Katara cried, “Bato!” and nudged her out of it.</p><p>Bato can’t seem to believe it either. “Katara? Sokka? Have I stared at the snow too long?”</p><p>As an answer, they crash into him for a hug. His strong arms hold them both. It’s not quite Dad, but it’s closer than they’ve had in a long time.</p><p>“How? <em>How</em> are you here?” Bato asks.</p><p>“How is everyone?” Sokka overrides him, “Are all the men here? Are they alright? Are you alright?” Bato’s clearly not, wrapped in bandages, but he is surviving and able to walk and hug.</p><p>“No,” says Bato, causing Sokka’s heart to freeze, “They’re not here, but they are alright. I was the only one that was seriously hurt. But I’ve been healing well.”</p><p>Sokka breathes again.</p><p>“Why don’t we head back to the Abbey, the nuns have been looking after me. We can catch up and you can introduce me to your friend.”</p><p>---</p><p>“Ice dodging?” Aang asks in confusion.</p><p>“It’s a coming of age test,” Katara explains, “To prove you’re a <em>man</em>.” The whole man thing had died down since they’d left home, and Sokka could openly do some girl things. And Katara could even admit that some of their tension had eased since they’d talked it out. Sure, Katara had secretly believed, at first, that Sokka would come around to Katara’s way if she just backed off. But then she’d decided to give it a chance, and she watched Sokka, like how she made time for her and Aang to go down to whatever river they were near for their weekly head-shaving. Sokka doesn’t even need to shave once a week, it’s just something Sokka enjoys doing with Aang.</p><p>Katara came to rather embarrassing conclusion that she’d thought the problem was all Sokka’s stubbornness, when it was actually some of her stubbornness too.</p><p>Anyway, she loves Bato, and hearing that everyone is not just still alive, but still well enough to fight. But she hasn’t missed Sokka hanging off the men’s every word and following them about as if they’re <em>better</em>.</p><p>Sokka sniffs, looking at Katara out of the corner of her eye. “Better than Gran-Gran’s <em>here’s the bleeding tent, let me get you some rags</em>.”</p><p>Katara rolls her eyes before Sokka finishes the sentence. “If you’d ever gone in, you’d know it’s more than that.”</p><p>Sokka looks at her like she’s an idiot and says, “I’m not allowed in, Katara.”</p><p>“What? Why not?”</p><p>Bato explains, “Men aren’t allowed in there, Katara, you know that.”</p><p>“But…” Katara starts, wondering how to put this appropriately for everyone involved in the conversation. “Sokka bleeds.” It’ll do.</p><p>“Gran-Gran’s tea is enough for me.” Sokka says with a shrug, “We’ve all had to work through it at some point, it’s not that bad.” And while, yes that’s true, there are always times when every hand is needed no matter what, those are exceptional circumstances, not the norm. Never being able to retreat to the quiet of the tent, to share strength and wisdom with the other women? It sounds lonely.</p><p>“I thought you were just too bull-headed to go in there,” Katara says in dismay, then turns to Bato and points a very severe finger at him. “Have you been making her work while she’s in pain?”</p><p>Bato raises his hands, eyes wide.</p><p>“No Katara,” Sokka intervenes, “They’d already left.”</p><p>“Oh…” Katara struggles to regain the tatters of her point. “Well, there’s more to <em>becoming a woman</em> than a tent and some rags.”</p><p>“Right,” Sokka agrees, “And I didn’t get that, so I’ll do the ice-dodging.” She looks out to sea. “But, after we’ve defeated the Fire Lord and have found Dad and have some free time.”</p><p>“No, you know what?” says Bato, “We’ll do it now. All of us. It is about becoming a man, yes, but more than that it is becoming an adult, part of a team and part of the Tribe. What cannot be done alone, we can do together. We, all of us, have our part and our place.” Bato smiles at all of them. “Come on, before the tide turns.” </p><p>---</p><p>Aang had messed up. He knew he’d messed up since he’d first lied about receiving a message from their father. But it had got harder and harder to admit until eventually all he’s left with is their deserved anger. Monk Gyatso would probably say something about lies gathering more lies, like snow down a mountainside? But Monk Gyatso isn’t alive, so Aang’s learnt that very obvious lesson all on his own. (It’s still strange. So strange. Sometimes it feels like he could just go home.)</p><p>Now Sokka is looking betrayed and angry, and shouting things about how Aang couldn’t be trusted and they should just leave. (Try too hard to keep someone close and you end up pushing them away. The monks would probably have something to say about that as well.) He’s watching them drift away from him and he can’t do anything about because all he can do is apologise and feel bad and Sokka is livid, and Katara is unhappy, and Aang doesn’t think it will be enough.</p><p>He’s going to lose them. Why can’t he stop losing people? Why does he keep doing things like this? How is he going to be a good Avatar if he can’t even keep his friends?</p><p>He feels like crying, but what good will that do? It won’t go back in time and change his decision.</p><p>“I’m going to find Dad!” Sokka declares, “You can make it to the North Pole on your own.”</p><p>It’s like a knife to the gut. He doesn’t want them to leave, he doesn’t want to be alone (he’s already so alone). But he can’t force them. If they want to go, then they will. He’s learnt that lesson at least.</p><p>“Sokka,” says Katara sadly, softly.</p><p>“Come on, Katara, we’ll pack our things up and go,” says Sokka.</p><p>“Sokka,” Katara repeats, “He’s family.”</p><p>Sokka blinks a few times, stunned, and Aang sort of gets how she feels. His heart is filling again with hope, but tempered because does he even deserve Katara’s faith?</p><p>“Katara, he lied to us,” Sokka points viciously at Aang, “He <em>hid things</em> from us.” The way she says it has a weight to it, something that Aang can’t quite grasp.</p><p>“Sokka, he’s family,” Katara insists, “We <em>said</em> we were.”</p><p>Bato is staying out of the debate. Aang can’t tell what he really thinks, but he’s letting Sokka and Katara sort it between them. Aang wonders if this is what it’s like for them in their village, and maybe he should have listened more closely to their stories. Maybe. Maybe? No, <em>of course</em> he should have listened and shouldn’t have given into the jealousy and fear.</p><p>(They got their <em>real home</em> back and were going to <em>leave him</em> and he could never have his own--) No. Katara is saying that they are still family. And even though Sokka looks like she wants to cut him out of it, Katara is intent.</p><p>There is so much tension between those two. Aang hates to be the one to cause it.</p><p>“If you go, I won’t go with you.”</p><p>“Katara…” both Aang and Sokka say.</p><p>“No, Aang.” Katara looks directly at him. “I meant what I said and I still mean it.”</p><p>It feels wonderful and awful and such <em>relief </em>but he is so <em>selfish</em> for it. Keeping Katara from her family when he wishes he could have his so badly (if he thinks about it, which he tries not to).</p><p>Katara looks back to Sokka and raises her chin. “You can still go see Dad.”</p><p>Sokka throws her hands in the air. “Not without you, I can’t. Obviously.” She lets out a noise of frustration and storms back towards the monastery.</p><p>“Sokka!” Katara calls.</p><p>“Perhaps give him some time to cool off,” suggests Bato, “He has already said he won’t leave.”</p><p>Katara lets out a breath through her nose, watching Sokka storm away. Then she turns to Aang. “You lied to us, Aang! You hid important information from us!”</p><p>Aang wants the ground to swallow him. If only he could earthbend already. “Yes, I know, and I’m sorry. I didn’t… I didn’t mean for it to go on this long!”</p><p>Katara tilts her head and narrows her eyes at him. “Why would you hide something like that in the first place? He’s our <em>father</em>.”</p><p>“Because I was scared you’d go back to your real family!” Aang blurts. He didn’t mean to say it in that way, exactly, but also, yeah.</p><p>“Aang,” says Katara, “You’re our family, but Dad’s our family too. He’s been gone for years, we didn’t even know if he was alive.”</p><p>It hurts Aang to hear how he’s hurt his friends (his family?), but he forces himself to listen.</p><p>“We can care about you both,” she continues, “It’s not a competition.”</p><p>Bato is the next to speak, to Katara. “It’s been too long since our last message.”</p><p>Katara looks to him with a raised eyebrow. “Last message?” she asks, “We never received <em>any</em> message.”</p><p>“Not even one?” Bato asks in horror.</p><p>Katara shakes her head.</p><p>“Maybe… someone did? And didn’t say?” Aang ventures carefully.</p><p>“We don’t hide things in the Water Tribe,” says Katara in a way that sounds like a plain fact, but also completely condemning. Or maybe that’s just the guilt talking.</p><p>“Sorry,” says Aang again.</p><p>Katara sighs again. “We share everything in the Water Tribe, Aang. To not share your food, or your tent, or information when someone else needs it, might mean that they die. Do you understand?”</p><p>Aang nods, feeling small again. They’ve been travelling and working together so intensely that it’s become the new normal, and he forgets how different they can be. The monks encouraged freedom and independence. Not selfishness, of course, and always with kindness and compassion. But definitely a certain… lack of being beholden to others. They would also talk of the interconnectedness of all things, but Aang doesn’t think they ever managed to say it so plainly. It’s not only your actions that affect others, but your inactions as well. “I do understand, Katara,” he says, “And I feel awful about it. I won’t do it again.”</p><p>“No, well,” Katara looks back to the monastery, “Sokka will come round eventually. She does like you. She’s just really missed Dad.”</p><p>Aang doesn’t miss that Katara doesn’t mention her own feelings, but he feels too tentatively out of the dark hole his lie dug to want to jump back into it.</p><p>“Well, I still need to go meet up with the men,” says Bato, “Perhaps you can write a message for your father, I’ll make sure I get it to him.”</p><p>---</p><p>Bato leaves. Katara and Aang see him off, and Sokka catches him a few steps from the wood.</p><p>“I was wondering when you’d come,” says Bato.</p><p>“Yeah…” says Sokka. He scuffs at the grass with his toe. He’s so much the boy they left, but he’s changed too. Both him and Katara, and Bato hasn’t had time enough to see all the ways, so Hakoda will have to make do with knowing they are alive and handling themselves well (he couldn’t exactly call them safe, Hakoda would see through that one).</p><p>Sokka looks back at the monastery. “Sometimes, I just wish—” he stops himself and sighs, “What good do wishes do?” he mumbles. Shaking himself out of whatever thoughts he was having, he looks back at Bato and grins. “It was good to see you.”</p><p>“It was miraculous to see you two,” says Bato. “I will have to tell your father everything: how tall you are, how well you did your dodging… He’ll be kicking himself for not getting injured.”</p><p>“Feel free to embellish some,” says Sokka.</p><p>Bato smiles, overcome by warmth and love for these children. “I won’t have to.” He puts a hand on Sokka’s shoulder. “Hakoda will be so proud.”</p><p>Sokka blinks hurriedly and then rolls his eyes. “Bato…” he whines, then crashes into Bato for a hug. Yes, definitely more muscle there than the young boy he knew.</p><p>“Your sister wrote a letter for your dad,” says Bato, “I can wait a little while for you to write one.”</p><p>Sokka shakes his head into Bato’s shoulder, and then pulls back, surreptitiously running a thumb under one eye. “No, Katara will have said everything.” He waves a hand in her direction. “I’m just glad to hear he’s- to hear you’re all alive and fighting still. We’ll find you again, after we’ve been to the North Pole. Aang will need an earthbending teacher so… keep a look out for a flying bison. We’re… not that subtle.”</p><p>“No,” agrees Bato, “You certainly get that from your father.”</p><p>Sokka snorts and protests weakly, before laughing properly. When he calms he is smiling properly, none of the worry lining his face. “Safe journey, Bato.”</p><p>“And to you,” says Bato, grasping Sokka’s forearm in a warrior’s grip.</p><p>He looks surprised, then pleased, and nods.</p><p>They break apart and Bato turns away to begin his long walk to his Tribe.</p><p>---</p><p>Sokka watches Bato leave until he turns a corner in the woodland path and disappears from view. Sokka sighs, she doesn’t want to return to the monastery just yet, even though she knows they should be leaving too. She just needs a bit more time. The prospect of Dad dangled in front of her and then taken. Aang hiding something like that from them.</p><p>Intellectually, she knows Aang will have reasons. He’s an airbender, and he said they don’t have families, not in the same way, so who knows what he was thinking. And she knows Aang well enough to know he will feel bad for hurting them.</p><p>But in her heart? She can’t trust herself to look at him without saying some things she’ll regret later.</p><p>If there’s anything living and working in close quarters with a lot of people has taught her, it’s when to engage and when to back off. So, in the meantime, while she comes to terms with not seeing Dad (who’s <em>alive</em> and <em>well</em>) she’ll work on something else.</p><p>She eyes the trees.</p><p>Yeah, one of those things Jet and his whole band of merry murderers was good at, was moving through the trees quietly without touching the ground. It was one of the better skills he had. A bit of practice (hardworking, energy-burning practice) would go a long way.</p><p>---</p><p>It’s while she’s up in the trees, sneaking about (not very sneakily, admittedly), seeing if she can follow the path below, that she hears something approaching.</p><p>Perfect time to practice. She climbs to a branch on the far side of a thick tree. If whoever or whatever it is passes her without seeing her, she’ll count that as a win.</p><p>Then whatever (or…whoever?) it is does pass her. At high speed. In the direction of the monastery. And it might be something normal around these parts, but there were (might have been? She was hiding behind a tree, she didn’t get a good look) people in red on the thing’s back.</p><p>Sokka drops down from the tree, playtime over, and runs after the creature.</p><p>---</p><p>There is crashing and screaming from the monastery as Sokka runs closer. Aang shoots up from the courtyard on his glider, followed by the snout of whatever the heck creature it was that passed Sokka on the forest path. Finally, a stream of fire shoots up and Sokka pushes herself flat out to the front gate.</p><p>It is, of course, closed.</p><p>Sokka allows herself a quick moment to swear loudly before she looks for where the creature must have got in. She finds the scraped wall and damaged roof of where it must have clambered over. The gouges from the creature, along with an old and woody vine, allow Sokka enough footholds to clamber up the wall onto the roof herself. It is purely the strength of desperation that gives her tired arms the strength to pull her up.</p><p>From her new vantage point she gathers the lay of the land. A weird gigantic rat-thing with a woman on its back is fighting with Appa. Aang is currently engaged with… right. The Fire Prince. Of course he’s managed to find them again.</p><p>It’s enough information for Sokka to know to through her boomerang at Zuko’s head.</p><p>“Sokka!” cries Aang, happiness clear on his face.</p><p>“Hey, Aang,” Sokka spares a quick moment to wave before jumping out of the way of the retaliatory fire.</p><p>Aang shoots a blast of air at the distracted Prince, sending him flying into a wall. “Sokka, I’m really sorry I hid your father’s letter,” Aang calls across the courtyard.</p><p>“Yeah, Aang, I know,” Sokka calls back, and watches Prince Zuko pull himself up with a barrage of fireballs aimed at Aang. “Shall we deal with Prince Hothead before we do the touchy-feely stuff?”</p><p>“Oh, sure!” agrees Aang like she’s suggesting they stop for lunch. Seriously, such a weird kid.</p><p>Sokka catches her boomerang and throws it again at the woman on the rat’s back, who’s quick enough to knock it away and out of action with her whip.</p><p>“Hey Aang,” Sokka dodges away to the far side of the roof as the whip comes for her. “Where’s Katara?”</p><p>“Oh, the animal got her!” Aang calls back.</p><p>“What?!”</p><p>“With its tongue! I think she’s okay though.”</p><p>“What?” Sokka says again, more quietly and to herself. She peers over the ridge of the roof and sees that, yes, the rat is lashing its tongue at Appa, and Appa is affected somehow. A poison-tongued gigantic rat? Where does the Fire Nation find these things?</p><p>Right, so, the tongue is its weapon. So take the tongue out of play.</p><p>Sokka shifts and the loose tiles of the damaged roof shift with her. That’s enough of a hint for her. She straddles the top of the roof, giving herself a steady base, and grabs the tiles from around herself to throw at the rat.</p><p>The tiles aren’t designed for throwing and it takes a few for Sokka to get used to their weight and how they fly, but accuracy isn’t the point. She throws them as hard and fast as she can manage, one after the other, towards the rat’s head. At the very least to distract it from the wavering Appa, but also because she would bet a week’s worth of jerky that its weird, tentacle-y nose is sensitive. Most noses are sensitive. That nose? Must be <em>so</em> sensitive.</p><p>She does manage to distract the rat, but that just brings the attention to herself. Whip-woman starts aiming for her and the first hit has her scrambling back to the safe side of the roof. That whip is longer than it looks, and it stings!</p><p>Sokka runs along the roof. All her weapons are with the rest of her things in Bato’s room. She could go back and get them? But that would take too long. And there’s a massive poison-tongued rat on her tail. She runs along the roof and clambers into a first-floor window, taking brief shelter in the room. She peeps over the windowsill.</p><p>Aang powers past on his air scooter, flinging up more tiles.</p><p>“How did they even find us?!” Sokka yells after him.</p><p>Prince Zuko is thankfully too intent to Aang to take a detour to attack Sokka as he runs past.</p><p>Aang stops, turns back on himself and does a flip over Zuko’s head, which he very satisfyingly fails to keep up with. “Zuko’s got your mom’s necklace!”</p><p>Sokka ducks out of sight again, back pressed against the wall as she tries to figure out what in the world Aang meant by that non-sequitur. Zuko’s had that necklace for weeks now. So Aang probably means Zuko’s got it on him now?</p><p>And Katara went down early on. It’s… well it’s <em>her</em> necklace now, really. It is coincidence the necklace and Katara, or…</p><p>Sokka snaps upright. “Its nose is sensitive!” she declares. She runs for the other side of the room and hops out another window onto the roof again. “Aang, it smells!”</p><p>“Yeah?” Aang says, sounding confused.</p><p>“Never mind, I’ve got it!” Because why explain what she’s thinking to Aang when she could just do it. And, yup, creature still after her.</p><p>Sokka peers over the edge of the roof. The large pots of perfume are all lined up below. They’re all closed with wooden lids, and this is going to hurt, but it’ll be worth it.</p><p>Sokka jumps down from the roof directly onto one of the pots. One of her legs goes through the lid, the other doesn’t, but altogether she overbalances the whole thing and tips perfume across the courtyard.</p><p>“Its nose is sensitive!” Sokka calls to the nuns gathered fearfully around the perimeter. “Overwhelm it, pour the perfume out!”</p><p>It takes them a moment to understand, but they see the rat’s hesitation as it comes up against Sokka in a puddle of perfume. And it does stink. Sokka’s nose isn’t even that sensitive, but the perfume was never made for anyone to bathe themselves in it. It’s a nice stink, she supposes, but it still sets her to sneezing.</p><p>The nuns pour out the other pots in the courtyard. Sokka is ready to dive back into the fight; her boomerang is lying not too far away, but the she sees how berserk the rat is going and beats a hasty retreat behind a stone wall that the tongue can’t reach her through.</p><p>“Sokka!” Katara wobbles up behind her and leans heavily against the wall.</p><p>“Katara, are you alright?” Sokka asks, putting a hand on her shoulder.</p><p>“Yeah, I don’t thi—oh wow, you smell.” She puts a hand over her nose.</p><p>Really? It’s not even a bad smell. Sokka opens up her arms for a hug. “Katara! I’m so glad you’re safe!” She gets in Katara’s space, threatening to press her perfume-soaked self all over Katara’s currently dry clothes. “I was worried!”</p><p>“Sokka, stop it!” Katara’s hands push weakly against Sokka’s chest. “What’s even happening out thre, is Aang alright?”</p><p>Sokka stops needling her sister and peers around the wall in time to see Aang land and fold up his glider with his usual neat <em>thwip</em> of airbending. “Yeah, he’s fine,” Sokka relays. “And it looks like everyone else is out. And the poison-tongued rat-monster is gone.”</p><p>“The…?” Katara squints at her and then nods in understanding. “The poison-tongued rat-monster, right.”</p><p>Sokka leaves the safety of indoors and goes out into the courtyard. Aang is over with Appa, checking that he’s alright. The three people who attacked them are all in a neat bad-guy pile. Sokka saunters over to them, picking up her boomerang on the way there. She approaches with some caution, but it soon becomes clear that they really can’t move. The high and mighty prince of the Fire Nation is <em>seething</em>. This is brilliant.</p><p>Sokka crouches down next to him and tentatively pokes his shaven forehead.</p><p>“Don’t touch me!” Zuko yells and wow, that is some hot breath. Can firebenders breathe fire? Seems like it would cause more damage than its worth.</p><p>“What are you doing, Sokka?” Katara asks from much further away.</p><p>“I don’t know, I feel like we should do something with them, now we’ve got them.” Sokka rubs her chin, but she can’t think of anything that would be useful (well, nothing that she’s willing to do, anyway).</p><p>“Like what, take them with us?” asks Katara.</p><p>Sokka looks over the pile of them, carefully avoiding the intensely glaring golden eyes (though the old guy is just watching her, which is somehow even more unnerving). “Maybe we could just… draw a better hairdo on him?”</p><p>Do they have glaring classes in the Fire Nation? They must have glaring classes.</p><p>“Don’t come to me when you lose your finger,” says Katara.</p><p>“I’m no barbarian!” The prince rages. “Take me with you and you’ll see what I’m made of.”</p><p>“Prince Zuko!” says the old guy, looking worried.</p><p>Sokka stands up quickly, metaphorically and literally dusting her hands of this situation. “Yep, you’re right, Katara, nothing good would come of that.” She steps away.</p><p>“We should probably go,” says Katara, looking at the destruction their battle has caused to the abbey, and the nuns now emerging from their hiding place.</p><p>“Yes,” says the head nun (chief nun?), stepping forward. “I think you better had.”</p><p>“Right,” says Sokka, ducking her head (she’d been using their roof tiles as projectiles, there are… more than a few of them shattered across the courtyard) “We’d better go get our stuff.”</p><p>---</p><p>Once they are flying safely away from that place, making decent time before their Fire Nation irritations can start following them again, Aang comes down from Appa’s head to join them in the saddle.</p><p>“Sokka, I’m sorry.”</p><p>“I know, Aang,” says Sokka because Aang has his baring his feelings face on, and Sokka would like to head that conversation off, if she can. “It’s alright.”</p><p>“No, it wasn’t.” Oh look, she can’t. “I let my fear get the best of me, but I should have trusted you.”</p><p>Katara smiles, but Sokka cringes. If Katara hadn’t stopped her, would she be making her way to see Dad now? And would Zuko have managed to capture Aang? Or, no, they were tracing Katara, weren’t they? Huh, maybe they wouldn’t have got to Dad after all.</p><p>But it doesn’t matter. She’s – they’ve all – chosen to stick together, as a family. Even though Aang’s a far better fighter than she could ever be, she doesn’t want to leave him to do it alone. Sokka smiles at Aang. “Yeah, you can trust us. We’ll be with you for as long as you need us.”</p><p>Aang looks so happy that Sokka can’t possibly feel she’s making the wrong decision.</p><p>“And,” Aang continues, “I know it’s not the same as seeing your Dad, but uh, Zuko insisted I give you this.” Aang holds out their mom’s necklace and Katara’s eyes light up.</p><p>“Aang!” she exclaims, taking the necklace with all of the care she has ever touched it with. “Well then,” she plays along, “Please give Prince Zuko my thanks.”</p><p>“I will pass your thanks on next time I see him,” intones Aang, though his straight face has many cracks in it.</p><p>Yeah, looking at the happiness as Katara puts her necklace back on, Sokka’s definitely made the right choice.</p><p>“Wow, Sokka, you really smell.”</p><p>“Thanks. Aang.”</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>I always thought it was weird that Katara and Sokka immediately dumped Aang at his first mistake so... I decided to have them not do that.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0006"><h2>6. Chapter 6</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>The gang reach the Northern Water Tribe.</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>I am newly unemployed so that either means I'll have more time to write, or that job seeking will destroy all joy in my life. We'll have to wait and see!</p><p>Either way, it's been a while, sorry!</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“Alright, team, gather round,” Sokka calls, mainly to Aang. As previously stated, not much room on Appa’s saddle so Katara’s already pretty gathered.</p><p>Aang leaves Appa’s head and comes back to sit on the saddle with them. Appa can fly straight on his own for a while.</p><p>Sokka claps her hands together. “Right, before we get to the Northern Water Tribe, I want to make sure you know,” he looks at Aang, “And give you time to practice. We’re back to Tribe Rules.”</p><p>Katara nods.</p><p>“Tribe rules?” Aang asks.</p><p>“From now on, I’m a he,” Sokka explains. “I’m a man of the Tribe and you have to treat me like one.”</p><p>“What does treating you like a man of the Tribe mean?” Aang asks.</p><p>“I just said,” says Sokka, “It means calling me he.”</p><p>“Is that all?” asks Aang, smiling, “That’s easy.”</p><p>Sokka glances at Katara, relieved to see the lightly alarmed look on her face, as well.</p><p>“It’s… not easy?” Aang re-evaluates.</p><p>“I don’t know how they’ll react,” says Sokka, “I don’t know if switching genders is even a thing there. I want to train with the warriors and they probably won’t let me do that as a girl, so they have to know I’m a man. Every time you talk about me, mention me, even think about me, I have to be a he. You <em>could</em> talk your way out of a slip up.” Though based on previous experience, that’s not Aang’s strongest skill. “But it’ll be easier if you never slip up in the first place.”</p><p>Aang nods.</p><p>“And I think you should start practicing now,” says Sokka, maybe over-worrying a little bit. “Just to get used to it.”</p><p>“All the time?” Aang checks.</p><p>“Yes,” says Sokka with a firm nod. “I don’t…” she grimaces, “I think you’ll be more likely to make a mistake if you start switching. Sorry.” She adds, “I just really want to train.”</p><p>Katara shakes her head. “We’ve got to do this all over again,” she mutters.</p><p>“Alright!” says Aang brightly, “I can do that! Katara,” he says with a cheeky grin, “Your brother’s a real worry-wart.”</p><p>“Yeah, he is,” Katara agrees.</p><p>---</p><p>Alright, so, their first introduction to the Northern Water Tribe is not the best. But the first time she met Aang, she accused him of being a spy and banished him from the village, so she can hardly blame anyone for attacking first and asking questions later. They pretty quickly change their attack rafts into an escort.</p><p>Katara is overjoyed at seeing so many waterbenders, and she’s nearly bursting at the seams with excitement. There are non-waterbending warriors on these rafts, too, and Sokka can’t help but feel the same kind of excitement.</p><p>Training, at last.</p><p>And not only that, but somewhere safe to sleep, good food, warm fires. Somewhere to stay put for a while. Other people to help with food and shelter. She misses the village, even though she doesn’t miss the strong sense that their generation will be the last, it will be good to be somewhere that feels more like home. And perhaps she can negotiate some help for the South. Seems only fair: we bring you an avatar, you send a couple of waterbenders down South to strengthen the village walls and build a few good igloos.</p><p>Then they turn the corner of the towering ice cliffs, and she sees the city wall. She realises that the ice cliff <em>is</em> the city wall. Yup, they could definitely send a couple of waterbenders down South to help with their defences.</p><p>The wall is sheer ice, and as the boats are propelled towards it, Sokka looks for a gate mechanism, or some evidence of an opening. There’s nothing. Until a gate-sized chunk just slides calmly out of the way for them to pass through, revealing the benders on the other side doing the work. Sokka can feel Katara buzzing with excitement next to her. Her own jaw is hanging open. <em>This</em> is what waterbenders are capable of?</p><p>They carry on into the city, and Sokka is having a hard time shutting her mouth. The difference is more than night and day, it’s midwinter and midsummer. Canals, houses that look better made and more solid than most Earth Kingdom homes, and people. So many people in blues and purples and fur. It’s all so familiar and so completely different.</p><p>“Look at all this, Sokka,” says Katara. People are gathering on the sides of the canals and on the bridges (bridges!).</p><p>“I know,” says Sokka, “I never would have imagined this.”</p><p>“It’s amazing.” Sokka looks over at Katara, her eyes are shining with hope. Yeah, it feels good to finally be here.</p><p>And Aang’s enjoying a new crowd to entertain with airbending, so he’s happy too.</p><p>---</p><p>They are immediately shown to a house made solidly of ice, with all the comforts of home. More than the comforts of home. The comforts of home if the pelts at home weren’t in constant need of fixing or replacing, if the women had time enough to make beautiful weavings. If home wasn’t dangling on the precipice of survival.</p><p>They are kind of depressing comparisons to make, but it is really hard not to.</p><p>They are invited to a feast in the evening. Katara remembers to explain what a vegetarian is, and what Aang will eat. That at least is the same between tribes. In the spare couple of hours they have before the meal, they wander the city.</p><p>Aang takes it all in his stride for the most part. He’s never mentioned visiting the Water Tribes before the war, but given that he spent time in Omashu, large buildings and lots of people probably isn’t that amazing to him, even if it is all made of ice.</p><p>Of course, Sokka and Katara have visited Omashu now, too, but seeing that something like Omashu <em>could</em> be created out of the ice they’ve lived on all their lives… well, it lands differently. And the questions it raises... Sokka doesn’t want to go down that particular rabbaroo hole right now, but like a rabbaroo, it jumps out at her and takes a lot of work to be ignored. (Is this what the South used to be?) She’s pretty good at ignoring things though. (Is the village still surviving?) She can’t <em>do</em> anything about it, so worrying about it doesn’t help anything (Is her family still alive?). And thinking too long and too hard about it just puts her in a bad mood, which, again, doesn’t help anything (What else has the Fire Nation taken from them all?). It’s fine. She’s fine.</p><p>Katara is going through something similar. The both of them quieter than usual as they stroll the canals, looking up and around, taking in everything there is to see. They’re wandering aimlessly, as much as Sokka would like to see where the men train, and Katara doubtlessly wants to find where the waterbending happens. But the place is big enough to get lost in, and they’ve got a feast to get to.</p><p>Sokka will <em>not</em> be missing any feast.</p><p>For now, the canals are interesting. Must make transporting things around easier with waterbenders. And some people get to cruise in style on their own transport rafts.</p><p>Well, one person, that Sokka’s seen. It’s a fancy decorated raft, propelled by one bender, so probably someone important. A girl, sitting very prim and proper in the front of the raft, her hands tucked into her sleeves. Her clothes are very fine, and she looks the picture of ladylike that people in the village used to encourage Sokka to be (not hearing that any more is a great perk of being a man). And Sokka thought Katara was girly, if this girl had been Sokka’s sister, those “why can’t you be more like your sister” comments would’ve stung much worse.</p><p>She’s also beautiful, this girl. The white hair would make her striking, no matter what the rest of her looked like, but she’s got a face that would turn heads no matter the hair colour. Put together, she could easily fit in one of Gran-Gran’s bedtime stories as a woman who could command the waves with her beauty, or something.</p><p>When the girl smiles at her – a small, polite smile – Sokka becomes horribly aware that she’s been staring at a stranger for far too long. Sokka smiles back, surprised, embarrassed and apologetic, and quickly realises that those expressions probably don’t come through very well when you mix them all together at once.</p><p>But just as quickly, the girl and her raft turn a corner and disappear out of sight. Sokka is weirdly disappointed to see her go, but also relieved to not have to explain the weirdness that just happened on her face. She’ll just chalk it up as another lovely sight in the city.</p><p>---</p><p>She was <em>not</em> just another lovely sight in the city. She was – is! – the chief’s daughter and it’s her birthday and she’s sitting next to Sokka for the feast! Well, maybe she won’t remember Sokka. What’s one face in the crowd to a princess, after all?</p><p>“So, sixteen, huh? I’m sssssssimilar age too.” She catches herself before she gives a definite age. Better to let everyone assume. But she doesn’t want Yue to think she’s a little boy; she hardly ever meets someone her age, even less so from the Water Tribes.</p><p>“Oh?” says Yue, looking politely interested.</p><p>“Yeah, yes, not many people our age back home, just me and my sister, really. Katara. Katara!” she pats Katara on the shoulder to get her attention. “This is Katara, my sister. And I’m Sokka, by the way. I didn’t introduce myself, did I? I’m… yeah, I’m Sokka. Of the Southern Water Tribe.”</p><p>Yue has her hand raise to cover her light laughter. “I heard,” she says, “It’s lovely to meet you.”</p><p>Sokka is torn between mortification at the fool she’s making of herself, and pride that she got a laugh.</p><p>“It’s good to meet you too,” says Katara, smiling at Yue before shooting a look at Sokka.</p><p>“Yes!” Sokka blurts, “It’s good, great even. I mean, so, what’s it like? Being a princess?” She then shoves her mouth full of food to stop any other words from falling out. She’s never felt this self-conscious before. She’s never found conversation this difficult.</p><p>Yue seems to put real thought into Sokka’s idiotic question, for which she is absurdly grateful. “Being a princess is… It is a great honour to represent my people, but it is also a great responsibility, that I take seriously.”</p><p>Sokka nods along. “Yeah, I guess… I guess that would be a lot.” She thinks about it a moment. “I kind of know what you mean, I was put in charge of my, uh, home a few, for a few years. I’m,” Sokka smiles, “I’m kind of a prince, where I’m from.”</p><p>“Prince of what?” says Katara, butting her nose in.</p><p>“A lot of things!” Sokka snaps, put off her stride (not that she was very on her stride in the first place).</p><p>Yue giggles, which is lovely, but also <em>not what Sokka had been going for</em>.</p><p>“You know, we should see each other sometime,” Sokka suggests to Yue. “Alone.” She stays facing Yue and blindly reaches out behind her, finding Katara’s face with very little finesse and pushing it away. “Not weird—not like <em>alone </em>alone, if you don’t want to, but just—” Katara licks her hand and Sokka yanks it away. “Just, somewhere there won’t be any <em>unnecessary commentary</em>.” She blindly wipes Katara’s spit on Katara’s own damn parka. “We could… do an activity together.”</p><p>“An activity?” Yue asks, the laughter threatening to break through and crack the demure princess exterior.</p><p>“Yeah,” says Sokka, hopeful and defeated all at once. Proven to have failed at wrangling this conversation in a direction she wants, but against all odds Yue has not outright shunned her friendship. She shoves more food in her mouth. Food is simple, food is tasty. Food is a good reason to stop talking.</p><p>Yue puts her hand next to Sokka’s. Not even touching, but clearly out of her personal space and into Sokka’s. Sokka’s hope wins out.</p><p>“I would like that, I think,” says Yue.</p><p>---</p><p>The next morning, all three of the gang are in excellent moods.</p><p>Katara is going to finally be taught waterbending, so she’s ecstatic.</p><p>Sokka somehow managed to get on well with Yue? She thinks? And she’ll be joining with the other warriors for training soon.</p><p>Aang is pleased about the waterbending training, of course, but he’s always more pleased when everyone else is happy.</p><p>The good mood lasts through breakfast and they part ways after, all three of them looking forward to some easy times after the pains they took to get here. Sokka waves Katara and Aang off as they head to their training, and Sokka picks up her boomerang, spear and club, heading off to her training. Real training!</p><p>She’s excited, but it’s also nerve-wracking. None of the warriors here know her, none of them know what she can and can’t do. She hasn’t had training in so long, do they do it differently here? The chief had assured her she was welcome to join them. She reaches the training grounds, asset of ice-huts and a wide open ground. There are some men already there and Sokka takes a deep breath, squares her shoulders, and walks into one of the huts like she’s meant to be there.</p><p>Inside it’s… just a lot of guys. They’re chatting, back-slapping, caring for their weapons. It’s familiar. She’s not usually on the outside of things but… it’s familiar. She sets her weapons and starts to do some stretches, just to limber up a bit.</p><p>It’s not long before someone comes over. “These yours?” He asks. He’s an older boy – a man – probably around twenty years.</p><p>“Yeah,” Sokka squeaks, clears her throat and then says, “Yeah,” in the proper manly tone.</p><p>The guy smiles and picks up her boomerang. He looks it over. “You can use this?” he asks.</p><p>Sokka stands up tall. “Yeah, it’s kind of what I’m known for.”</p><p>“Huh.” The guy turns it over in his hands. “Not many choose a boomerang. You’re the Southern boy, right?”</p><p>“Yeah, Sokka,” says Sokka.</p><p>“Olly,” says the guy, putting the boomerang back down. “You should head to the armoury after training, get yourself a new spear.”</p><p>“A new spear?” Sokka asks.</p><p>“Yeah, that one looks a bit,” Olly stares at the spear, ”…homemade. The weapons master can get you something sturdier.”</p><p>Sokka looks at her spear. Aren’t all spears homemade here? “For real? I can just… pick up a spear?”</p><p>Olly nods. “Go after training, though, old Gunna is a stickler for punctuality and he’s already out there waiting.”</p><p>“What?” Sokka asks, “He’s what?” Sure enough, the room is a lot less busy, people have been leaving without Sokka even noticing. She slips her boomerang holster on and grabs her club, and hurries out.</p><p>“Woah, woah!” Olly grabs her club and holds her back. “Training weapons, Sokka!” he points to a rack of wooden and unsharpened bone weapons (where do they get all that wood from?).</p><p>“Oh,” says Sokka, “Right, yeah.”</p><p>Olly laughs. “You Southerners like to do things the hard way, huh?”</p><p>Sokka forces out an embarrassed chuckle. “Yeah, I guess.” She puts all her weapons back down in a hurry. There’s no proper place to put them all so she just leaves them in a pile and hurries over to grab a training spear (a stick) and club (a differently shaped stick). “You coming?” she asks.</p><p>“I’ll see you out there.”</p><p>Sokka nods and hurries out. Everyone else is gathered and it’s very obvious she’s late. It’s not usually something she’d worry about, given that at home everyone would assume she was either busy with something that couldn’t be put off, or she’d get a stern word from her dad about it.</p><p>The oldest man watches her approach. His lips tighten. “You’ll be joining us today?” he asks.</p><p>“And tomorrow,” says Sokka, “If… If you’ll let me.”</p><p>“Depends if you’re going to be bringing up the rear every day.  Alright everyone,” He moves on before Sokka can reply, “Warm up!”</p><p>Sokka just about keeps up with the warm-up by following everyone else a step or two behind. She’s self-conscious at first, but soon rationalises that no one’s thrown or dragged her out of the training grounds, so it’s far from the worst she’s managed. The others are looking at her curiously, and Sokka does her best to represent the Southern Water Tribe.</p><p>Once they are all warmed up, they really get down to the training and it… it feels good. She doesn’t really know anyone here, but they’re all the same sort of age, the same sort of <em>size</em>. At last it’s the kind of training that feels like it’ll be useful <em>now</em>, not <em>in a few years, when you’re</em> <em>old enough</em>. And there’s still the same camaraderie in getting knocked down and being given a hand up. And, alright, she’s getting knocked down a lot more than everyone else, she’s clearly not the best fighter here and that doesn’t feel great. But she’s been not-the-best-fighter for a long time, and above all else, this feels like <em>change</em>.</p><p>She wants to bring all the boys from the village, when they’re old enough, and show them <em>this</em> is what it’s meant to be. A lot of people working to be better.</p><p>Then Olly comes out. He’s taken off his parka, wearing much closer fitting clothing and bare arms.</p><p>She didn’t notice when he was in his warmer clothes, but he is strong, muscled, and his upper arms are truly impressive. Sokka surreptitiously squeezes her own arm through her parka. No, nowhere near Olly’s level. But one day.</p><p>---</p><p>Sokka is exhausted by the afternoon, but it feels so good. She takes a stroll around the city to enjoy the moment. She’s feeling strangely buoyant.</p><p>It might be…</p><p>Is this optimism?</p><p>It’s that feeling that buoys her up when she sees Princess Yue being chauffeured along the canal. She hurries to catch up and wave to get her attention.</p><p>“Princess Yue!” she calls.</p><p>Princess Yue looks over. “Sokka,” she greets.</p><p>“It was a great feast last night,” says Sokka, “Less fun after you left. So I was thinking… that we… we could uh, spend time? Together? And uh…” Wow, Yue gives nothing away with her polite smile.</p><p>“…Do an activity together?” Yue finishes for her, with a laugh in her voice.</p><p>Sokka’s tension is flushed out by relief. “Yeah, an activity.” She grins. “I’m free a lot. No big plans coming up so we could—”</p><p>Sokka’s stomach shoots to her throat and suddenly she is incredibly, so very entirely <em>cold and wet. </em></p><p>She gasps, flails a moment before her brain joins the rest of her body in the canal and she has the presence of mind to pull herself out again. She looks over to Yue, and would probably be hot with embarrassment if she hadn’t just dunked herself in ice water.</p><p>Yue has her hand over her mouth, laughing but looking worried at the same time.</p><p>“I’m fine!” Sokka waves a hand to show that everything’s cool (a-hem).</p><p>Yue’s raft pulls ahead. “I’ll meet you tonight at midnight,” Yue calls and points to the bridge she’s about to pass under, “On that bridge.”</p><p>“It’s a date!” Sokka calls back with another wave.</p><p>That went shockingly well, all told.</p><p>And now? Inside, before the cold really sets in.</p><p>---</p><p>Sokka is in their house and changed into dry clothes, trying to make an impromptu dryer out of furniture, when the door slams open.</p><p>Sokka turns, sees the storm cloud that is Katara’s face, and asks, “What’s wrong?”</p><p>Katara marches in, rips off her gloves and throws them at the ground.</p><p>“Master Pakku won’t teach her,” Aang explains, looking sad and worried.</p><p>“He won’t even let me watch!” Katara explodes, arms waving vigorously as she takes up pacing. “<em>Women</em> aren’t supposed to fight.”</p><p>“But you’re a waterbender,” Sokka says.</p><p>“<em>Apparently</em>, that doesn’t matter!” The angry pacing continues. “Women don’t fight. Women learn <em>healing</em>.”</p><p>“Well, that would be useful,” Sokka ponders, and quickly realises her mistake in voicing <em>that </em>thought out loud when Katara turns on her. Sokka raises her hands, “So you can learn that in the day, and at night Aang can show you what he’s been learning.”</p><p>That pulls Katara up short. And more to the point, before she can bring their entirely-constructed-out-of-frozen-water house down on Sokka.</p><p>“Yeah!” Aang brightens. “I’ll teach you what I’ve learnt!”</p><p>“I can’t believe we didn’t think of that,” says Katara.</p><p>“Don’t feel too bad, not everyone in the group can be a genius,” Sokka assures her.</p><p>In the process of rolling her eyes, Katara notices Sokka’s make-shift drying rack. “Why are your clothes all wet?”</p><p>“Oh, uh,” Sokka steps in front of it, even though it’s already been seen, “I fell into a canal, it’s fine. No biggie.”</p><p>Katara stares at her. “Uh huh. Genius.”</p><p>---</p><p>That night, they head out of the house, high spirits all round, much like the morning before.</p><p>They return shortly after, all of them thoroughly thwarted and hopes dashed. Sokka is the last to arrive in their house. She took her time coming back from meeting Yue, cutting scuffs into the snow and ice with her frustration. She wanted to just fall into her bedroll when she got back, and pass out and not have to <em>think</em> about she messed everything up.</p><p>When she opens the door and saw Katara pacing angrily, she knows it’ll be a while before anyone in the room gets sleep. “What’s going on?” she asks as she shuts the door behind her.</p><p>“Pakku, that old slug, found us practicing and is refusing to even teach Aang now! Said we had disrespected him!” Katara throws her hands up incredulously and pauses for Sokka’s comment.</p><p>“You did disrespect him,” says Sokka, not in the mood to spend effort putting it nicely. And anyway, this is Katara.</p><p>“Well, yes,” Katara admits, “But his beliefs are stupid, and he’s willing to jeopardize the <em>world</em> for them.” She flings her arm out towards Aang, who’s sitting on a bedroll looking downhearted.</p><p>Sokka considers saying something about the strength of Katara’s convictions and what she might risk for them, but discards the idea. It’s not helpful, and she can’t be bothered. “He doesn’t know we’ve got a time limit,” Sokka says, sloping into the room and collapsing onto her bedroll.</p><p>Aang perks up. “Maybe if we tell him how important it is I learn quickly, he’ll change his mind?”</p><p>“Maybe,” Sokka allows. “Seems like a pretty proud guy, though.”</p><p>“But that won’t help Katara,” says Aang, face falling again.</p><p>“No,” Sokka agrees.</p><p>Katara stomps to her bedroll and thuds down onto it, arms and legs crossed. “How’d a guy like that get so much power, anyway?” she asks.</p><p>“Probably good at what he does,” Sokka posits.</p><p>“So would I be if they just gave me a chance!” Katara fumes.</p><p>“Yeah,” Sokka replies quietly, “Yeah, I know.” There’s a moment of silence where everyone exists in their own separate emotional worlds, then Sokka says, “Maybe you could cut your hair—</p><p>“Sokka.” Yeah, she knew Katara wouldn’t go for that.</p><p>“Or put your hood up! I don’t know. Maybe he wouldn’t notice if you’re dressed like a boy to watch practice or something,” Sokka suggests.</p><p>Katara considers it. “Maybe…” but eventually her own restlessness overcomes her, “Ugh, I shouldn’t have to pretend to be something I’m not in order to learn my own heritage!”</p><p>Sokka tries to placate her. “I know, but—”</p><p>“How do you do it, Sokka?”</p><p>“Do… what?” Sokka’s brought to a halt momentarily, before picking up Katara’s train of thought and hopping onto that. “Katara, we’ve been through this, I’m not pretend—”</p><p>“But you have to know it isn’t fair.” It’s one of her impassioned speeches. Sokka’s not often on this side of the impassioned speech. “It isn’t fair that we have to jump through hoops to do things the men just get handed to them!”</p><p>As if Sokka needs any of that explained to her. It’s a bit insulting that Katara thinks she does. “Of course I know it’s not fair.”</p><p>“So how do you do it?”</p><p>“Do <em>what</em>?” Sokka asks again, the exasperation growing.</p><p>“Live with it!”</p><p>Sokka stares at Katara. She just does? Where else is she going to live? But Katara won’t accept those as answers, she’d start talking about the <em>should</em>s and the <em>if-only</em>s. “If they cared about <em>fair,</em> things would already <em>be fair</em>. They make the rules, and sometimes they’re stupid rules, but they’re still <em>the rules</em> and they’ll get mad if you break them.”</p><p>“So what, we should follow their rules in case they get mad?” Katara sneers.</p><p>Sokka rolls her eyes. “Obviously not, but you don’t have to be obvious about breaking them.”</p><p>“But then they’ll never change the stupid rules.”</p><p>And… sure. That’s a point. That’s a… point. “Yeah, well…” Talk about punching the wind out of her sails. “I’m only one girl.”</p><p>“What are Gran-Gran and me?” If Katara were standing, she’d have her hands on her hips. “Chopped liver?”</p><p>“Sorry,” Sokka says flatly, “We’re two girls and an old woman, that makes all the difference.”</p><p>“Well,” Aang speaks up after a wisely staying out of it, “The three of us are going to defeat the Fire Lord, right? There’s no reason the three of you can’t change some stupid rules. And I’ll back you up, it’ll help to have the avatar on your side!”</p><p>“Yeah, Aang,” says Sokka, unconvinced, “I guess so.”</p><p>“Except Pakku.” Katara nails the main reason Sokka is unconvinced. “The Avatar doesn’t make a difference to him.”</p><p>“Oh,” Aang lowers his head back to his knees. “Yeah.”</p><p>“Which is why I’m saying you don’t have to be so obvious about it.” <em>Finally</em> back on the original train of thought. “Dress like a boy, stay at the back of the group. Let the old fart teach you without even knowing it.”</p><p>Katara nods. “And if he finds out?”</p><p>Sokka shrugs. “Then he’ll really know how much you disrespect him. And Aang can do his thing with the big eyes and say he had no idea – yeah, like that – and we’ll all be in exactly the same place as where we started. Come on, Katara, being a boy isn’t so bad.” She pulls Aang into a one-armed hug so they’re both smiling at Katara, showing just how not-awful it is. “See?”</p><p>“Alright, I’ll try it.” Katara says, though reluctant. “After we meet with the chief tomorrow and get you taught properly, Aang.” She points a finger at him.</p><p>Aang sits up straight. “Yes, ma’am!”</p><p>Katara smiles and takes a breath before turning to Sokka once more. “So how did your… thing with Yue go?”</p><p>“Ugh,” Sokka collapses back onto the bedroll, “Don’t remind me. We met up and then she said she was sorry and that she couldn’t do it and…” Sokka covers her face with her hands to muffle her frustrated yelling. “I’m a girl! I’m just trying to be friends!”</p><p>“And she thinks you’re a boy, who was coming on pretty strong…” Katara fills in.</p><p>Sokka throws her hands back down and stares at Katara. The outrage! “I was not coming on strong! I was being friendly!”</p><p>“Uh-huh.”</p><p>Clearly Katara needs more convincing. “And meeting was her idea in the first place!”</p><p>“Maybe she just doesn’t like you like that?” Katara suggests.</p><p>“I don’t want her to like me like that!” She throws her hands up in defeat. “I take it all back, being a boy sucks!”</p><p>“I’m sorry, Sokka.” Katara sounds more amused than sorry, but sure.</p><p>“Whatever,” Sokka turns onto her side, facing away from Katara. “Let’s get some sleep before we’ve got to go meet with all the bigwigs.”</p><p>Aang reaches over and gives her shoulder a squeeze. A silent, manly acknowledgment of pain. It’s not like him. She appreciates it. “Thanks, Aang.”</p><p>
  <strong>---</strong>
</p><p>They’re up at the break of dawn the next morning, which sucks. Sucks even more given how late they went to sleep. But they’ve got to be up and ready</p><p>“Katara, can you give me a hand?”</p><p>Katara stops in the doorway of the washroom (does every house have a toilet in it, or just the nice ones?) “What are you doing?”</p><p> It’s a fair question, it does look like Sokka is fighting her own clothing. “I need to make my wrappings tighter.”</p><p>“What do you mean?” Katara asks, though she moves closer and takes the cloth from Sokka’s hands.</p><p>“I need to look like a man, and these,” Sokka points to her boobs, “Aren’t exactly helping.”</p><p>“You’ve never worried about them before.” Despite her questioning, she holds the cloth wrapping while Sokka slips her hand under it and moves said boobs into something approaching a comfortable position. They’re going to get smushed, but there’s no need for it to be painful.</p><p>“Yeah, well…” She waits until her delicate task is complete before continuing the conversation. “They don’t even let waterbenders fight. They definitely won’t let non-benders fight.”</p><p>“But you’re a man,” says Katara.</p><p>Sokka snorts. “I hardly have anything to prove it. If they find out, what can I say? That my dad lets me fight? You’re the last Southern waterbender <em>and </em>the Avatar’s friend, and they won’t even give you the dignity of training you fully. They won’t make any special changes for me.”</p><p>Katara’s lips thin, but she keeps the cloth good and taut as she helps Sokka wrap and tie off and tuck neatly. “So we’re both really going all in on the dressing as boys while we’re here.”</p><p>“I know it’s not ideal.”</p><p>Katara snorts.</p><p>“And for what it’s worth,” (Very little) “I wish they didn’t have these stupid rules, but they do, so—”</p><p>“So we’ve got to work with what we’ve got.” Katara finishes for her with a bitter smile.</p><p>“Yeah,” says Sokka. She blinks a few times, then continues, “It’ll be fine. We’ll stick it out while we’re here, you and Aang learn your stuff, I’ll learn mine. Once we’re done, boom, we’re gone and we never have to return.” Sokka perks up as an idea hits her. “No, wait, we can return when I’m Chief of the Southern Tribe.”</p><p>“You want to be Chief? That’s news to me.”</p><p>Sokka slips her undershirt on. “I do if it means I can rub it in their faces.”</p><p>Katara laughs as she backs away to give Sokka more room. “I promise I won’t tell Dad that’s your reason.” She leans against the door frame. “Or the rest of the village.”</p><p>“What?” Sokka peers at Katara, “You don’t think spite’s a good reason to become Chief?”</p><p>Katara grins. “<em>I</em> think it’s a good reason. But I don’t think they will.”</p><p>---</p><p>They go meet with Pakku and the Chief in his grand hall. Yue and their council of Elders are also sitting in on it.</p><p>It’s going… well? It’s going well enough. It’s awkward but they must look sorry enough (desperate enough).</p><p>And then the Chief suggests Katara apologises.</p><p>And then Pakku. Pakku, it turns out, is a bad winner. “I’m waiting,” he says, “Little girl,” he says.</p><p>And oh, how Katara explodes. The only other person Sokka has seen piss Katara off quite like that is herself.</p><p>“I’ll be outside if you’re man enough to fight me,” she ends her tirade and storms out of the room.</p><p>Aang, bless his little monk soul, tries to keep the peace. “I’m sure she didn’t mean that,” he assures the gathered men.</p><p>Sokka, who knows a lost cause when she sees one, says, “Yeah, she really did.”</p><p>Still, they both follow Katara outside, trying to dissuade her from fighting a <em>waterbending master</em> because (and Sokka says it with all the sisterly love in the world) there is no way she will win this. But Katara is not an idiot, she knows she’ll lose. But it doesn’t matter, she still pulls off her parka and throws it to Sokka.</p><p>Sokka is, of course, endlessly frustrated by this.</p><p>She is also more than a little proud.</p><p>And Katara does well for herself, but there is a stark difference between her and a master. It’s a little humbling to see, this power that Sokka had never really taken seriously in Katara. But still Katara struggled on and has taught herself well enough that even a bitter old man has to admit that she’s good.</p><p>Perhaps Sokka could’ve helped more growing up. Two sisters without proper training, they had more in common than she ever admitted. There were probably a lot of things she could’ve done better growing up.</p><p>She watches Katara prove her worth. And Katara does, ten times over, all the more worthy for the fact that she’d never have to prove anything if she were only a boy. Pakku doesn’t see it. He only sees an upstart that needs to be put in her place.</p><p>Until he sees Katara’s necklace. Their mother’s necklace. Or, apparently, Gran-Gran’s necklace.</p><p>He tells a story of being betrothed to Gran-Gran, and Gran-Gran leaving him. Sokka’s estimation for him lowers about the same amount that his pride in Gran-Gran raises. Sixty years and he hadn’t been able to see that maybe the love of his life leaving him said something about him. Water is the element of change? Clearly all the change had gone South because they were severely lacking it up here.</p><p>“It was an arranged marriage,” Katara deduces, talking to Pakku’s bowed back. “She didn’t love you, did she?”</p><p>Sokka is knocked from her quiet reassessment of every conversation Gran-Gran has had with her by Yue running off, overwhelmed by tears. Sokka watches her go.</p><p>“Go help her, Sokka,” Aang encourages. Sokka looks over at him and he nods with a smile.</p><p>The chief looks dumbly after his daughter. Honestly, the North are way more useless than their reputation implies.</p><p>So Sokka goes.</p><p>She catches up with Yue on a bridge in a quiet corner of the city.</p><p>Tears run silently down Yue’s cheeks. “What do you want from me?” she asks, like she’s cornered and just wants to get away.</p><p>“Friendship?” Sokka suggests.</p><p>The sceptical look Yue shoots her is cutting.</p><p>“Alright, I don’t… I don’t need anything from you. And, and if you want me to go I will. I just think that you are beautiful and kind, and that there’s more to you than meets the eye. And I’d like to get to know you better, if you’d allow me.”</p><p>Yue drops her head down for a moment, before raising it on a deep breath in and looking up at the sky. “You are sweet and funny,” she says, “And I would like to get to know you, as well. But…”</p><p>Sokka feels like she’s on a precipice waiting for what comes next, and dares to step closer. “But what? Tell me, Yue,” she says.</p><p>In one smooth motion, Yue turns and pulls down her collar to reveal her necklace. “I’m betrothed.”</p><p>Sokka could scream.</p><p>Yue doesn’t understand, doesn’t get it, and she won’t, because she can never know, “I’m not a man!” Sokka blurts, then freezes as she reviews the last five seconds. She was just thinking it really loudly, right? She hadn’t actually heard those actual words come out of her actual mouth with her actual ears. Right?</p><p>But Yue is stopped in her tracks, staring at Sokka. They probably look like idiots staring at each other in shock. Sokka can’t appreciate the moment, too busy trying to think of a way to shove the words back down her throat and ignore <em>just how much</em> those words might have cost her.</p><p>Sokka forces a laugh out of her mouth, “I mean, I’m just a boy,” she laughs nervously again. “Who’d want a boy? Not me!” She moves away, but Yue grabs her hand and holds her in place.</p><p>“No, Sokka, what did you mean you’re not a man?” Yue asks.</p><p>Despite Sokka’s unwillingness to meet Yue’s gaze, she can still feel Yue looking at her, <em>really </em>looking at her. Her manhood feels like a flimsy costume being dismantled. She looks around, to check that no one else is about to overhear, that no one else can see her come undone.</p><p>“Sokka?” Yue squeezes her hand and Sokka looks at her. She isn’t angry (yet), she just looks confused and concerned.</p><p>Sokka’s heart is thundering and she feels sick. She <em>can’t </em>give up everything for just a chance to have a friend. She can’t, it’s <em>ridiculous</em>. “I’m a man of the Tribe,” her mouth says, “When I was young I wanted to fight. I wanted to protect my village from the Fire Nation, so I had to fight. But it wasn’t allowed unless I was a boy, so they made me a boy. I wasn’t born… I’m not… Under all this,” she gestures to herself, “I’m…”</p><p>“You’re a girl?” Yue asks softly. She still holds tight to Sokka’s hand and reaches up to cup Sokka’s cheek with her other one.</p><p>Sokka forces herself to meet Yue’s gaze and nods tightly, just once. She holds her breath under Yue’s scrutiny, until suddenly Yue breaks into a grin.</p><p>“You’re a girl,” she says again.</p><p>“Yes?” Sokka confirms, pushed off-kilter by Yue’s reaction.</p><p>“I thought you were a boy, so… well, having a fiancé…” says Yue as Sokka’s mind desperately tries to catch up. “But you’re a girl, so it’s fine!”</p><p>“It is?”</p><p>“Yes! <em>Yes</em>, Sokka, it is.” She clasps Sokka’s hand in both of her own. “<em>Thank you</em> for telling me, Sokka,” she says sincerely.</p><p>“Um, well, you’re… welcome?”</p><p>“And I will not let on to a soul what you have told me. Though, I assume your sister must know?”</p><p>“Um,” Sokka blinks. “Yes. And Aang.”</p><p>Yue nods, her expression losing some of the excitement, her mask of manners returning. “Very good,” she says, still smiling.</p><p>“Okay, umm, what’s just happened here?” Sokka asks.</p><p>Yue’s smile widens just a little. “We’ve become friends,” she says simply.</p><p>“Oh? Oh! Good!” says Sokka, still reeling. “I wanted to be friends.”</p><p>Yue giggles. “Good.” She gives Sokka’s hand a squeeze and lets go. “I should get back to my father before he gets too worried, I do not usually lose myself like that.” She looks down at the water running beneath the bridge before wiping her eyes and looking back up at Sokka. “I will see you tomorrow, if you have time.”</p><p>“Yes, um, yes!” Sokka tries not to sound too eager. She doesn’t want to push whatever trove of good luck she’s stumbled upon. ”Of course, whenever you’re free.”</p><p>“I will let you know.” Yue gives another smile and walks past Sokka.</p><p>“See you tomorrow, then,” says Sokka, grinning, “And have a great rest of today!”</p><p>Yue waves as she leaves. Sokka turns and heads towards her house. Everything’s been turned on its head, and at the same time nothing’s changed. It’s probably going to take at least one sleep to get her head around what just happened. She looks up at the sky, dawn has come and gone, and there aren’t any answers up ther—oh crap, she’s late for warrior training.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>JUST SOME GALS BEING PALS</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0007"><h2>7. Chapter 7</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Sokka and Yue continue to get to know each other.</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Thank you all so much for your comments and kudos, I love them. I hope you enjoy some more pal time with our gals.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Their time at the North Pole is peaceful at first, for lack of a better word. It’s the longest reprieve they’ve had since Aang popped out of the ice, which isn’t saying much, but it’s something. Sokka and Katara train hard and are happily exhausted at the end of each day. Aang lacks a certain drive in his training, but the general rule applies: when his friends are happy, he’s happy.</p><p>Katara’s fight with Pakku made a splash even amongst the non-bending warriors.</p><p>“So, that’s your sister, huh?” A group of boys, approach Sokka during a break in training. Sokka doesn’t recognise them as anyone particularly stand out on the training ground, but by their walk she can see they’re top-notch at posturing.</p><p>“Yeah, that’s Katara,” Sokka replies cautiously.</p><p>“Must’ve been something growing up with her.” The front guy grins after saying it. It’s like there’s a punchline somewhere that Sokka can’t see.</p><p>“Ha, yeah.” Sokka doesn’t really laugh. “Well, you know sisters, kinda terrifying when they’re angry.”</p><p>“You can rest easy now you’re here,” The guy says. Maybe this is their way of trying to make friends? “Northern women know their place.” They chuckle amongst themselves.</p><p>Sokka could laugh along. She probably <em>should</em> laugh along. It would really help with the whole manhood situation going undiscovered. But it doesn’t sit right with her, and she thinks of her Dad, and it probably wouldn’t sit right with him either. So she raises her chin and looks the man in the eye. “What are you saying about Southern women?”</p><p>The man sighs and rolls his eyes. “No need to get your undies in a knot. I’m just saying, you don’t need to worry about getting an earful from any of our women.”</p><p>Sokka kind of doubts that, there’s a lot of people in the city and Sokka is very capable of being annoying if she puts her mind to it. But it’s not really an experiment she wants to conduct. “Well, <em>I’m</em> just saying we respect our women in the South.”</p><p>The guy’s lip rolls up in a sneer, this clearly isn’t going the way he intended, but one of his friends steps close and slings an arm around his shoulders. “No, don’t you get it?” the second guy says, “If they’re like that outside the house, imagine what they’re like under the furs.”</p><p>That sentiment hangs horrifically in the air</p><p>Sokka is almost physically repelled as the words settle in her brain. “That’s my sister you’re talking about, man!”</p><p>The group burst into laughter.</p><p>“You think she’d give me a ride?” one of them speaks up.</p><p>“She’d freeze your nads off,” Sokka tells him.</p><p>“See?” says another, “This is why women shouldn’t be trained.”</p><p>Sokka snorts. “Trust me, she wouldn’t need training for that.”</p><p>“Why, because she already got yours?” More uproarious laughter.</p><p>Sokka’s face burns hot. She doesn’t know what to say. The men back home would talk about their wives, but even annoyed and frustrated, there would always be fondness and love. They were never so crass as this.</p><p>“Alright guys, break’s over, go pick up a club.” Olly wanders over, and the group move on like a shoal of fish seeing a whale shark coming. They still laugh between themselves as they head to the weapons rack.</p><p>Sokka looks up at the sky and blinks a few times.</p><p>Olly puts a hand on her shoulder. “Everything alright?”</p><p>Sokka takes a deep breath, lets it out, and nods. “Yeah, it’s fine.”</p><p>“Don’t worry about them. They talk big, but they mostly get by on their families being high up in the council. Not that you heard it from me.” Olly winks at her.</p><p>Sokka ducks her head. “Oh, right.” The North is so weird. She looks back up at Olly. “Thanks.”</p><p>Olly grins and lets go of Sokka’s shoulder. “You won’t be thanking me if I have to tell you to go pick up a club again.”</p><p>“Oh. Right!” Sokka says again, and hurries to do just that.</p><p>---</p><p>So, alright, some people are dicks, but also, what’s new? Sokka’s getting on, and getting training. The best parts of the week are the evenings when she can meet Yue.</p><p>Sometimes they meet in the day, and that’s nice. But it’s best when they meet in the evenings, the late evenings. Sort of after every reasonable person has gone to bed. Yue had explained that as an engaged woman, she couldn’t be seen to be getting too familiar with a man that wasn’t her intended.</p><p>Long story short, they snuck out at night to meet each other.</p><p>Sokka waits at the stables, where Yue’s told her to. She fidgets with her gloves, part nervousness, part the cold being much more cutting at night. A hand closes around her arm and she startles, but relaxes when she sees it’s Yue.</p><p>Yue pulls her further into the stables, into one of the stalls with the buffalo yak. The animal snorts awake, stepping skittishly away from the intruders into its home.</p><p>“Hey, it’s alright, it’s just us,” Sokka nonsensically tells it. Yue pats its shoulder and that is apparently enough to convince it that everything’s fine and it should go back to sleep.</p><p>“Come here often?” Sokka asks.</p><p>Yue covers her mouth to giggle. “No, not often. But when I was smaller I found a wonderful hiding place.”</p><p>“Oh?”</p><p>In the darkness, Sokka can make out Yue’s gloved hand pointed up. She follows it and sees the further darkness of an opening in the ceiling. “But my father lifted me up there last time,” Yue ponders.</p><p>“That’s no problem,” Sokka insists, “I’ll boost you.”</p><p>“You’ll what?”</p><p>Sokka links her hands together to form a foothold for Yue. “You step here and I’ll lift you up.”</p><p>“What about you?” Yue asks.</p><p>“I saw a bucket outside I can stand on.” Sokka evaluates the height of the ceiling. “Yeah, that should do.”</p><p>“Alright,” Yue agrees.</p><p>Yue allows Sokka to boost her up into the nook. Once she’s safely up there and its confirmed that there’s nothing else hiding up there in the dark, Sokka grabs the bucket for herself.</p><p>The bucket is not as big as Sokka had hoped, but it’s still fine, she’ll manage. She’ll just have to do a bigger jump. She’ll be strong enough to pull herself up from there. Yeah.</p><p>And she is. Mostly. Yue feels the need to grab the back of her parka and pull her up, and it’s not really <em>needed</em> but it is helpful.</p><p>They sprawl into the darkness, muffling their laughter.</p><p>“I’m sorry,” says Yue, amusement still strong in her voice, “I forgot how high it was.”</p><p>“It’s no problem,” Sokka tries to hide her heavy breathing, “We’re up here now.” She sits up and finds their surroundings to be strangely soft. “What’s this stuff?”</p><p>“It’s buffalo feed,” Yue replies, “It keeps the warmth from the animals in.” Well that explained why it wasn’t so horribly cold up here.</p><p>“Huh,” says Sokka. “Not bad.”</p><p>“Not bad?” Yue asks.</p><p>“As a secret meeting place. Warm, animals to cover the sounds, out of the way. Only problem is it’s too dark to see you.”</p><p>“I’ll keep that in mind while I look for where we will meet next,” Yue says.</p><p>“No, it’s fine, it’s good! I’ll survive not seeing your beautiful face for a while.” That statement leaves a gaping silence behind it and Sokka cringes hard. Is that what Katara meant by coming on too strong? But Yue understood the situation now so it should be fine? “I mean, I just want to spend time with you. It’s all good.” There. Saved it?</p><p>“I am sorry we have to hide…” Yue sounds sad, and that’s really the last thing she should sound.</p><p>“No, it’s no worry,” Sokka hurries onward, “So, is this where you bring all your secret friends?”</p><p>“No. I don’t make a habit of secret friends. Or many friends at all.”</p><p>“You’re the <em>princess</em>, you must know lots of people,” says Sokka.</p><p>“I know them, but,” Yue pauses, uncharacteristically uncertain, “There are not many I would call a true friend.” She takes a breath. “I was very ill, when I was born. And then after my mother died… My father is very protective of me. He would not want me mingling with the… wrong types. And many of the right types are…” She sighs and Sokka can hear her move in the darkness. “I am the only child of the Chief, it is advantageous for many to be my friend. But the friendship is…” Another pause. “It is not always sincere.”</p><p>Sokka’s heart aches for her. There is a story behind that, and Sokka can piece enough of it together to see the pain. “It sounds lonely.”</p><p>“Yes.” A moment more of silence and then Yue laughs self-consciously. “But how have you avoided friends? You’re so strong and charming,” (Sokka stores those compliments to gush over another time) “Is it… because of your, your manhood?”</p><p>“What? Oh no,” says Sokka waving her hands, “It’s nothing like that. I get on well enough with all the village and they treat me well. But, well… me and Katara were the only babies to be born in like a ten year period. At least, the only ones that survived. So we were too young to be much more than an annoyance to the older girls and boys, and too much older than the younger ones to really call them friends. Since we left the South Pole we haven’t really stayed in one place long enough.”</p><p>“It must have been scary, to leave like that.”</p><p>Sokka shrugs. She could downplay it completely, but that would feel too dishonest for this conversation. “It all happened so quickly I think I only realised what we were doing a few days later, and by then we were miles away.”</p><p>“Do you ever wish you hadn’t left? Or that you could go back to safety?”</p><p>Sokka grimaces. The concepts of ‘home’ and ‘safety’ have been complicated for a long time, so she moves on from that. No need to drag Yue down. “Sometimes, when everything’s going wrong, I wish it was all somebody else’s problem, but then I think of Katara and Aang doing it alone, and I couldn’t let them do that. And… I’ve seen and learnt so many things I never would have.” She looks towards Yue and tries to meet her eye, even though she can see barely anything. “And the people I’ve met? I would never give that up.”</p><p>Yue smiles and looks away. “You’re very sweet, Sokka.”</p><p>“Oh look, I’ve learnt some else new: the truth is sweet.”</p><p>You snorts, and it’s the least ladylike thing Sokka’s heard out of her. She wants to hear more like that.</p><p>“Sokka…” says Yue, amused and exasperated in equal parts.</p><p>“Yue…” Sokka repeats the tone back to her.</p><p>Yue shoves Sokka’s shoulder. “You say ridiculous things.”</p><p>“Oh the truth is ridiculous too?”</p><p>Yue shoves Sokka’s shoulder harder and it’s only the knowledge that they’re supposed to stay hidden that muffles Sokka’s laughter.</p><p>They continue to talk together, Yue demanding that Sokka tell her stories of the outside world. But their time has to come to an end eventually, and they make their way out of the buffalo yak stalls.</p><p>Once Sokka is done brushing animal feed off Yue’s back, she asks, “We’ll do this again, right?”</p><p>Yue smiles, and even though there is only moonlight to see it, it looks more genuine than any other. “Yes. Definitely.”</p><p>---</p><p>Training continues to be good, even though Sokka never really makes any friends. No one is as gross as the high-born pricks, but Sokka still feels like a bit of a novelty among them. As if Katara’s fight made them realise that she’s from the outside world where things are different. Sokka gets the odd question about what women are allowed to do in the South (“Are there women warriors?” Sokka has to laugh).</p><p>The ones with waterbender brothers who are constantly being shown up by Katara have two reactions. Either they blame Sokka for not keeping her sister under control, or they have a weird kind of pity for Sokka that her sister is more powerful (or more to the point, that <em>she</em> is stronger than <em>him</em>). Both are annoying. Sokka can see the gains in all her muscles, but sometimes she thinks that her eye roll is actually getting the most practice.</p><p>The instructors, at least, are mature enough to ignore it all. They cut it off when it distracts too much from the lesson, and Olly usually gives her pointers at the end of training that at least leave the whole thing on a positive note.</p><p>It’s worth a bit of annoyance to learn. And it’s worth more than that to be able to return to a beaming Katara, who will always show her what she’s learnt. And even though she huffs and whinges when Aang or Katara inevitably mess up and she gets doused in freezing water, it’s good to feel like they’re all progressing. Like when they leave the North Pole they’ll actually be ready to take on Prince Zuko and Zhao, and anyone else who will try to stop them.</p><p>---</p><p>“So, who’s the, uh, lucky man?” Sokka asks eventually, nodding towards Yue’s neck. They’ve found a stable where the roof had melted enough to let Sokka kick a hole in it. They are finally able to actually see each other in their nightly talks.</p><p>“Oh, he’s a second son of one of the noble families.” Yue answers.</p><p>Sokka does not miss that it’s not really an answer. “Right. Is he nice?”</p><p>“He has his good qualities,” says Yue.</p><p>“And is one of those qualities being a decent man?” Sokka presses.</p><p>“He is a very successful man,” says Yue.</p><p>Sokka rolls her eyes. “Yeah, but do you even <em>like</em> him? Because you’re not giving that impression.”</p><p>“I have a duty to my people, Sokka.” It’s the closest Sokka’s heard to Yue being angry.</p><p>“Well alright, but there are plenty of good men in this city. And look at you!” She gestures to Yue because <em>look at her</em>. “You could have anyone you wanted.”</p><p>Yue shakes her head. “His family have been getting restless. Making them part of the royal family will calm them down. And H—he is a simple man.”</p><p>“What does that mean?”</p><p>“It means he isn’t interested in politics and as his wife, I will be able to influence him,” says Yue with logic and forethought and no emotion whatsoever.</p><p>“You’ll give up the rest of your life for politics?”</p><p>Yue peers at Sokka from the corner of her eye. “You’re a warrior. Aren’t you willing to give up your life for the Tribe?”</p><p>Sokka pauses. “Well, yeah. But at least if I do, I won’t have to keep living it with someone I don’t even <em>like</em>.”</p><p>“The perks of being a man,” says Yue flatly. She’s usually so serene, it’s off-putting to see her so cynical. Sokka feels it’s something she has to fix.</p><p>“Yue, you don’t have to—"</p><p>“Sokka,” Yue says it sharply, and its so different from her usual tone that it feels like she’s shouted. “You think I do not have a choice, but I do. I choose this, and I am prepared to see it through. You will not convince me to turn my back on my Tribe. <em>Or</em> to go against my father’s wishes.” She adds before Sokka can get a word in. Her face is stern, but her eyes are watery, and yeah. Yeah. She’s been given a crappy choice to make, but she’s made it.</p><p>“Fine,” says Sokka at length, “Fine. I just want you to know that I am against your marriage to this guy.”</p><p>Yue nods. “Your concern has been noted. But what about you, Sokka?”</p><p>“What about me?”</p><p>“What does the rest of your life look like?”</p><p>Sokka scrunches her nose up. “Hopefully, it looks like the end of the war.”</p><p>“And after that?”</p><p>Sokka shrugs. “That doesn’t really matter now.”</p><p>“But it will matter,” says Yue, “Once you, your sister and Aang have ended the war, what will you do?”</p><p>“You make it sound so easy.”</p><p>“Humour me.” Yue turns her full attention to Sokka. “Assume it is done.”</p><p>“Uh, I guess I’ll go back to the South Pole.”</p><p>“And?”</p><p>“And hunt, and fish and build the houses, make the tents.” She shrugs, “What I’ve always done.”</p><p>Yue frowns at Sokka, almost... disappointed? “No you won’t.”</p><p>“What do you mean?” Sokka huffs, “Why ask me if you’re going to tell me I’m wrong?”</p><p>“Because I wanted to know what you thought.” Yue smiles, pleased with herself. “I didn’t know you were going to be wrong.”</p><p>Sokka folds her arms and leans back against a pile of feed. She waves a hand at Yue. “Go on then, princess, tell me my future.”</p><p>Yue puts a thoughtful finger to her chin. “You’ll be a war hero, so you’ll get invitations to travel places, perhaps be asked to make decisions about what should happen. Or, more likely, be asked to support someone else’s decision to win people over. Talks of peace, reparations. New treaties for the South Pole.”</p><p>That sounds like a lot. But they’re also things that would need doing. Whether Sokka would have anything to do with them, that’s not certain. “Ugh, Yue, you’re starting to make ending the war sound like a bad idea. You think about these things?”</p><p>“Yes,” says Yue, “That’s what being a leader is.”</p><p>“Maybe I don’t want to be Chief after all.”</p><p>“You could be Chief?” Yue asks, leaning in with intensity.</p><p>“Yes? I mean, it would need to be voted on, but Dad is the Chief at the moment.”</p><p>Yue taps a finger against her lips. “Well, that would certainly keep you busy. And then you would be able to have your <em>own</em> pick of husbands.”</p><p>Sokka fixes Yue with a disbelieving stare. She gestures to herself “Have you seen me? I won’t have the pick of <em>any</em> husbands.”</p><p>Yue does look at Sokka, and longer she doesn’t deny it, the more resigned Sokka becomes. Yeah, maybe she <em>will</em> be left to do all the treaties because everyone else will be having families and celebrating with their spouses.</p><p>“There’ll… there’ll be someone out there for you,” says Yue, stumbling over the words.</p><p>“Yue, you don’t have to… we don’t need to talk about this.”</p><p>Yue reaches over and takes her hand. “You are strong and clever and beautiful,” she says sincerely. Then her eyes light up. “And you’ll be able to visit me!”</p><p>“I’ll… what?”</p><p>“You can visit here, I can visit you on diplomatic journeys. The Northern and Southern Water Tribes will need to have contact. And the war will be over, so I’ll be allowed to leave the city.” She looks amazed by the prospect. “So we’ll visit each other!”</p><p>Sokka swiftly rubs the back of her hand over her eyes. “Yeah. Yeah! We’ll visit each other!” She grins. “That’s something to look forward to. I mean, that’ll be something to look forward when I’m not already here with you.”</p><p>“Oh, and there’ll be feasts,” Yue says, “Politics comes with lots of feasts.”</p><p>“I do enjoy feasts.”</p><p>Yue pulls Sokka’s hand into her lap, and leans against her shoulder. They look out at the night sky. “I have every faith that you will end the war,” Yue says softly.</p><p>“Well, you’ve convinced me it’ll be worth it now.” And it does feel good to have something to look forward to. Something <em>after</em>.</p><p>---</p><p>Sokka takes Yue out for rides on Appa, who is delighted for the company. At first, Sokka was showing off (yeah, sure, just <em>at first) </em>but Sokka doesn’t think she’s seen such pure enjoyment on Yue’s face. So Sokka invites her up to the clouds a few times. From the second time, Yue brings treats for Appa, thereby buying her way into his heart too.</p><p>Sokka spends most of their time flying watching Yue. She’s seen landscapes, and she’ll see more landscapes. But it’s not the same for Yue, who Sokka is pretty sure has never been beyond the city walls.</p><p>Yue watches the horizon as much as she looks down on the city, shockingly uncaring for their height even as she clings onto Sokka’s arm. She squeals with joy when she sees a hunting party making their way back across the ice. She points out every raft scouting between the icebergs. She asks to fly low, to see the city she knows so well from a different angle, and she marvels at the details carved into the roofs, high up above the people’s heads. They fly until it looks like Yue’s cheeks are becoming red with windburn, or sunburn, or both. And Sokka persuades her that they should land or she’ll be sore tomorrow.</p><p>Sokka is respectful as possible as she returns Yue to her father. They are pushing the limits, she’s sure, for a betrothed woman to be spending so much time with another man. But chief Arnook doesn’t miss Yue’s breathless joy. His face is inscrutable when they meet – his polite mask is as firmly in place as his daughter’s – but he never suggests that they not meet again. He never says anything to make Sokka think she should stay away.</p><p>Yue’s betrothed is nowhere in sight. By no means are Sokka and Yue spending all their time together, but Yue says nothing of him, and he has certainly never shown his face to Sokka. The flying bison is hardly subtle, he should have noticed. Sokka doesn’t understand him. Even if he is a man of unbelievably poor taste and doesn’t like Yue, the marriage will be for the rest of his life too. It would be in his best interests to get along with his wife.</p><p>Though Yue had all but called him an idiot, so maybe that’s all Sokka needs to know about him.</p><p>---</p><p> </p><p>“So, when did you become a man?” Yue asks delicately, the upward lilt of her tone belying just how she’s leaning in, her gaze intent</p><p>Sokka’s been expecting something like this question ever since she first revealed her truth to Yue. She’s impressed that Yue was able to hold back this long. “Uh, about four years ago now, I think,” Sokka answers with a shrug.</p><p>“How did you do it?” Yue asks. “How did you get them to agree to it? Get your father to agree to it?”</p><p>Sokka meets her gaze at that. “I asked,” she says, “And I asked and I asked and I asked. But I think it was really cutting my hair that did it.”</p><p>“Cutting your hair?” Yue frowns in confusion.</p><p>“Yeah.” Sokka turns her head away from Yue. “I have a scar here,” she feels at the stubble behind her ear, trying to find it. Not easy with gloves on. From what Sokka’s been able to see in any reflective surface she managed to find, it’s a curved slice into her hairline where nothing grows.</p><p>“I see it.” Yue touches her gloved hand to Sokka’s scar. The touch sends tingles across Sokka’s skin.</p><p> Sokka clears her throat. “I’d usually say I got it fighting off a tiger-shark.” She sends a little grin Yue’s way. “But really I did it trying to shave my hair off. I just got… I was so angry at Dad for not letting me fight. I had to do something he couldn’t ignore. So I cut my hair and went to fight him.”</p><p>“<em>Fight</em> him?” Yue asks, shocked. She absent-mindedly strokes over Sokka’s scar. Sokka doesn’t stop her.</p><p>“He refused to fight me,” Sokka replies, “But I think it showed him how serious I was. The years of making arguments and giving him all the best reasons to teach me just weren’t enough, I guess.” Sokka looks down at her lap and blinks rapidly.</p><p>“But he did agree, in the end.”</p><p>“Mm,” Sokka nods. “In the end.”</p><p>“Why,” Yue starts, “And I don’t mean anything by this question, I am just curious, but why did you want to fight so much?”</p><p>Sokka shifts, uncomfortable but not unwilling. She finds that forcing the words out is like getting the cork out of a bottle. “When, when I was younger the Fire Nation invaded our village.” She pauses, swallows, and looks down at her hands. “They killed my mother, and I… I couldn’t do anything. I wasn’t even… I couldn’t protect Mom, I couldn’t protect Katara. I was just so…” Sokka presses a hand to her chest where the loss still burns. “What is the point of me if I can’t protect my family?”</p><p>Yue squeezes Sokka’s shoulder, but waits in silence for her to continue.</p><p>“I will never stand by and let the Fire Nation take from me again. We fight to the last man standing.” She says the last with dark humour. The number of men standing has dwindled with everything else.</p><p>Sokka tips her weight towards Yue, and Yue welcomes it, pulling Sokka in and wrapping her arms around her. “I never knew things were so bad in the South. I had heard that there were raids but I thought… I thought you were locked in like us.”</p><p>Sokka lets out a laugh that might be a sob. “I could never have imagined this place. The South is just tents and igloos out on the ice.”</p><p>“And Katara truly is the last Southern waterbender?” Yue asks.</p><p>Sokka shrugs a shoulder. “As far as we know. Since the men left we haven’t had any contact with the other villages. It’s too,” Sokka takes a deep breath and lets it out as a sigh, “It’s too logistically challenging. Getting everyone in the same place at the same time, making sure we have enough for the journey.” Perversely, the old worries are calming, not things she had to think about in a long time, but a familiar trouble.</p><p>“I will speak with my father,” says Yue with resolve.</p><p>“What?” Sokka asks, rising slightly from Yue’s shoulder.</p><p>“We call you our sister tribe, but we have clearly left you without aid for too long.”</p><p>“What can you do about it?” Sokka asks.</p><p>“My father is the Chief, we eat together every morning and evening.” She smiles at Sokka, looking more confident in herself than Sokka has seen. “I can convince him.”</p><p>Sokka smiles back and presses the anger deep down (so much time spent convincing men). “Thank you, Yue.”</p><p>“Well, what would we tell our children? That we sent the Avatar on his way then sat by and let everyone else do all the hard work?”</p><p>“I dunno, what did your parents tell you?” Sokka hears what she says after it’s already left her mouth. She shoots up in her seat and holds her hands up to placate. “I don’t—I didn’t mean—” Oh, what would Katara say? “We’re grateful for all the help you’ve given, and the welcome we’ve had.”</p><p>Yue has that same smile as when Sokka is making a fool of herself. “It is not an unfair comment, from your perspective,” she allows. “And as sister tribes we should be able to speak candidly.”</p><p>Sokka waits for the other shoe to drop. “But…?”</p><p>Yue smiles wider. “Oh, there’s no but.” Her smile softens and she cups Sokka’s cheek, bringing her closer until their foreheads touch. “You have opened my eyes to so much, Sokka,” she breathes into the scant separation between their lips. “I hate that you have been hurt. This is the least I can do.”</p><p>“It isn’t your fault,” says Sokka. Yue’s eyes are closed, but Sokka is going cross-eyed trying to see her face and glean anything. Sokka’s heart is beating wildly and she licks her lips, pushed off-kilter by the extended sincerity. Has she ever been this long without making a joke before? She’s not sure.</p><p>“It’s the least I can do,” Yue repeats.</p><p>Maybe Sokka should just go with it? Yeah. Yeah, just sit with Yue, that’s nice. See where the moment goes.</p><p>Yue’s eyes open and meet Sokka’s gaze.</p><p>Her eyes widen and they jerk away from each other, cheeks flushing in the cool air.</p><p>“Yeah, you know,” says Sokka, stretching as if that were the reason she pulled away, “It would be great if you could talk to your dad. Some waterbenders would be really helpful down South. And a few good hunters, they’d go a long way.”</p><p>“Yes,” Yue agrees, examining the landscape around them, “I will. If you think of anything else that would be useful, let me know.”</p><p>“What, do you want a list?” Sokka asks jokingly.</p><p>“Yes,” says Yue, “Anything you might find useful. Always ask for more than you need.”</p><p>“But someone else might need it more,” says Sokka.</p><p>Yue shakes her head. “When it us your people’s lives on the line? Ask for as much as possible, within reason, then when you are negotiated down you still get what you need.”</p><p>“Huh,” is Sokka’s eloquent reply.</p><p>“Don’t worry,” Yue smiles, “I promise when you are the Chief and I am the Chief’s wife, I won’t negotiate too hard.”</p><p>“You’ll be in charge of negotiations, will you?”</p><p>Yue sits up and places her hands daintily on her knees, somehow even more prim and proper than her usual prim and proper self. “I’m sure I’ll be able to persuade my dearest husband that negotiations are just dreadfully boring. And if the other party agrees to it…” Yue raises her eyebrows at Sokka.</p><p>“I suppose I could agree to negotiate with the Chief’s beautiful wife, I’m sure the Chief is a very busy man.” says Sokka thoughtfully.</p><p>“The North is grateful for your magnanimity.” Yue bows her head with an intense sincerity that can only be sarcasm.</p><p>Sokka can’t hold back her grin.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0008"><h2>8. Chapter 8</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>The Fire Nation arrive and kinda ruin everyone's day.</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>This is a difficult one, I meant to post it on my birthday, but then I didn't, and now I've been staring at it for days so I'm going ahead with it.</p><p>Advance warning: things get transphobic and there is a non-graphic assault. I've upped the rating accordingly. All comments are welcome!</p><p>I don't think anyone was expecting the Northern Water Tribe to come out of this looking good, but boy, they really don't.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Their time of rest is ended by the black snow falling.</p><p>Sokka’s stomach twists. This much black, it’s not just Zuko’s ship.</p><p>An armada arrives on the horizon. It’s everything from their nightmares. Horrors Sokka and Katara were born knowing.</p><p>The Northern Water Tribe kicks into battle preparations, well drilled warriors and benders head to the city wall or out to take on the boats directly. Aang joins them, managing a few ships on his own.</p><p>The Tribe is not prepared for the catapults, for flaming rocks raining down from the sky. On the one hand, it’s a heck of a thing to have to expect, on the other hand, Sokka can’t help but wonder when the last time the Fire Nation tried a full assault on the North. What technology they had then.</p><p>While Aang is out fighting the ships directly, Sokka and Katara find themselves helping in the evacuation. They hadn’t been prepared for such a direct assault on their homes, and the women and children need to be moved further up into the city.</p><p>You’d think, with all the waterbenders and the sheer solid ice the city is surrounded by, they would have made some places to run to and hide safely. But no, they’d never thought of that (at least, not enough to fit everyone). So they move the women and children as far from the sea as they can get, open up the healing houses, and rely on the warriors to hold the Fire Nation back. If the warriors fail, everyone else is walled in on all sides. The thought of it sets an icy knot in Sokka’s chest.</p><p>Katara lifts collapsed buildings and Sokka searches the ruins, pulling out anyone trapped. It’s exhausting, seeing the faces of families who didn’t know their home could be taken from them. People who didn’t know the Fire Nation could turn their houses to death traps and rip away any safety they felt.</p><p>They don’t begrudge these people the ignorance they’ve been living in.</p><p>But Sokka thinks the ignorance has cost them. The warriors were drilled perfectly. Everyone else was left to fend for themselves.</p><p>By the end of the day, all three of them are tired and bowed under the weight of expectation that they had been able to forget for the past few weeks.</p><p>There are so many ships, Aang can’t take all of them out. It takes too many waterbenders to disable a single ship for them to possibly stop them all. They need a new direction.</p><p>When sun sets, the attacks stop. The armada waits, out of the reach of even the strongest benders, presumably for the sun to rise again. It’s some breathing room that the Water Tribe is not going to turn down, but it’s undoubtedly in the Fire Nation’s interest.</p><p>Chief Arnook asks for volunteers for a special mission and marks each of them. The rest of the warriors are set to prepare defences.</p><p>Being guests, Sokka, Katara and Aang are left to fight how they see fit.</p><p>Katara asks Sokka and Aang, “What do we do?” It’s hard to know where they’re most needed, or what approach they should take.</p><p>Sokka and Aang’s thinking faces are nearly identical. “I’m going to go help with the special mission.” Sokka decides eventually.</p><p>“You’re going to volunteer?” Katara asks, worried that it’ll put Sokka in more danger.</p><p>“No,” Sokka answers, “But if they’re sensible, they’re going to attack the ships directly, and we have information they can use. If they already know it, then fine.” Sokka shrugs. “I’ll meet you back here either way.” She waves as she leaves and jogs towards the training grounds.</p><p>A moment later, Yue joins Aang and Katara. “Father told me that I am to help to help you in any way I can. If there is anything you need, I know this city well, and I have some authority, I can requisition it.”</p><p>Aang bows to her, “Thank you, Princess Yue, your help is greatly appreciated.”</p><p>“Where is Sokka, should we wait for him?”</p><p>“He’s gone to discuss tactics with the warriors,” says Katara, “They’ll either kick him out for sticking his nose in, or he’ll be gone a while.”</p><p>“Ah,” A single word can contain much disappointment. Yue fixes a polite smile. “Then we should come up with some tactics of our own.”</p><p>---</p><p>After running swiftly through the training grounds and the surrounding buildings, Sokka finds the room where all the warriors chosen for the secret mission are. She lurks outside the open doorway, listening for a moment just to check that she’ll have relevant information. After everything, she still doesn’t want to look like an idiot in front of the other warriors.</p><p>She does have useful information; they’re going to infiltrate the Fire Navy. She suspected something like that, it was either that or set elaborate traps outside the walls.</p><p>She steps into the room and her eyes are immediately drawn to one of the noble guys, the ones that have given her sneers at best ever since their <em>discussion</em> of Katara. He’s wearing a ridiculous Fire Nation-ish armour, chest all puffed out like he’s important (even more so than usual). The shoulder… pads? are pointy, like massively pointy and evil looking, so good effort but also… Sokka sniggers.</p><p>“Sokka?” Chief Arnook turns to her, “Is everything alright outside?”</p><p>Sokka straightens herself. “Yes, Chief Arnook, I came to,” Wow those shoulders are distracting, “Give information on the…” It’s no good. “Is that supposed to be a Fire Nation uniform?”</p><p>“It’s a real Fire Nation uniform, captured in a raid,” the Chief informs her.</p><p>“When? Like, a hundred years ago?” she asks.</p><p>The Chief wilts. “Eighty.”</p><p>Sokka goes over and points out the flaws. With some relish because it’s really annoying the guy wearing it.</p><p>“What are you even doing here?” asks the guy, with his familiar sneer.</p><p>“I’ve had a lot of close contact with the Fire Nation Navy recently,” Sokka replies, perfectly reasonable, “I thought I would share information with you for your mission.”</p><p>Chief Arnook nods slowly, still looking unconvinced. He turns to the waiting warriors. “Our first task is to find out who is leading the attack.”</p><p>“Commander Zhao,” says Sokka. “Big sideburns,” she mimes them, “Angry looking, about yea high,” she puts his height as a fair step above hers.</p><p>Chief Arnook looks at her, eyes wide, and asks, “You’re sure you don’t want to volunteer for the mission? It would be useful to have someone of your expertise.”</p><p>Expert on the Fire Nation, that’s not a title Sokka ever thought she’d hold. “You need your strongest fighters for your mission. I have a long way to go before I’m that good.” True, but mostly she doesn’t want to leave her family to deal with this battle on their own.</p><p>Armour-guy puffs up a little more and it’s nauseating. “How do we know we can trust this guy?” he asks, all smarmy and making Sokka immediately regret even indirectly complimenting him. “Such bold talk for a new recruit.”</p><p>“Sokka is from our sister Tribe, Hahn.” Finally, a name! “He is a capable warrior and I value his input.”</p><p>Sokka grins at Hahn.</p><p>The Chief nods to himself. “Sokka, tell everything you know to Hahn, he is leading this mission. Hahn, give Sokka your respect. I expect nothing less from my future son-in-law.”</p><p>Oh. Oh no. “Princess Yue is marrying <em>you</em>?”</p><p>“Yeah.” The smarm is dripping off him. “What of it?”</p><p>Sokka gives Hahn a long, evaluating look. She doubts there’s much more to know about him than what she’s already learnt on the training grounds. “Nothing,” she forces out, “Congratulations.” Because they’re in the middle of a war and she should play nice. And she does, as they go to a corner to discuss Sokka’s intel on the Fire Nation.</p><p>But Yue could never have done anything to deserve <em>that</em> as a husband.</p><p>Hahn is… not smart. Sokka can see how Yue would run rings around him. But he’s also arrogant and stubborn. Sokka is pretty sure all her descriptions – of boat layouts, of uniform changes, of Zhao himself – are only making the briefest detour through Hahn’s brain before they zip straight out the other ear.</p><p>And speaking of stupid and stubborn, the one thing he’s realised about Sokka is that talking about Yue annoys her. So, does Hahn put aside their differences to work together as allies? Does he shit. He’s found something that annoys Sokka and he’s going to flaunt it.</p><p>After an hour of this (or more? Feels like a lifetime), Sokka’s last nerve is wearing thin. And Hahn, for all of his idiocy, can tell. They are leaning over a table, where Sokka has done her best to draw diagrams of the ships, a helpful picture of Zhao (she captured the sideburns <em>perfectly</em>) and the different uniforms. Hahn hasn’t paid any attention.</p><p>Hahn leans on table, smudging the happy catfish Sokka drew (for size comparison!), smugness oozes out of him as he says, “You know, Yue is nice and all, but it’s really the perks she comes with that sells it for me.”</p><p>“Perks?!”</p><p>“Yeah, getting in good with the chief. But, I suppose you’re just a simple rube from the Southern Tribe, what would you know of the political complexities of our life?” He grins like he’s just come up with the greatest burn in the history of war with the Fire Nation, “No offence.”</p><p>Oh yeah, and Hahn thinks she’s <em>jealous</em>. As if. Yue has already shown she’s way more interested in spending time with Sokka, and they’re already conspiring to trick Hahn into letting them meet more. So whatever power Hahn thinks he has, Sokka’s got what matters (she can’t say it but yeah, <em>enjoy your loveless marriage, bozo, your wife’s going to walk all over you and then come celebrate with me</em>).</p><p>Seeing that Sokka didn’t rise to that soggy bait, Hahn continues, “Not to mention I’ll be able to get my hands on that body.”</p><p>The thought of having to… with <em>Hahn</em>. She shudders, Yue is a brave woman.</p><p>Hahn grins. “Whenever. I. want.”</p><p>“Whenever <em>you</em> want?!”</p><p>Hahn’s smirk widens.</p><p>Alright. No. Fuck it. She did her best.</p><p>In the universal sign of <em>a throwdown is coming your way</em>, Sokka strips off her parka and throws it to the side. Before Hahn can really take that in, she throws the first punch.</p><p>Hahn was never the best at fighting in any group, but neither was Sokka. Hahn is larger and bulkier her, and up close he can use it to his advantage.</p><p>But Sokka isn’t the frame of mind to really think and analyse these things. If she were in that frame of mind, she wouldn’t have leapt on him in the first place. So, on reflection? Terrible idea. But during? Immensely satisfying, and absolutely worth the bruises.</p><p>What it isn’t worth is what comes after their brawling wrestle is brought to a halt.</p><p>Sokka has got herself on top, seating her full weight on Hahn’s diaphragm, and tries to give him a black eye to match the one she’s fairly sure is blossoming on her face. Hahn’s hand is hooked into her undershirt and yeah, sure, what’s he going to do with that? Like pulling her closer will be any help for him.</p><p>“Sokka! Hahn!”</p><p>Jolted out of her immediate rage – when did the Chief get here? – and with her fists’ desire for Hahn’s flesh mostly sated, Sokka stops. Her fist is raised and forgotten as she looks around at, yes, the Chief, and also anyone else within hearing distance coming to see what the commotion is.</p><p>Hahn takes advantage and pushes her off, slamming her into the ground with a force that suggests he isn’t entirely happy with stopping there.</p><p>“Hahn!” says Chief Arnook again. “Get these two up,” he orders the men standing around watching.</p><p>Olly comes forward and pulls Sokka to her feet with gentler hands than anyone else probably would have done. Gunna, the training master, helps Hahn up.</p><p>Sokka brushes back the hair that’s fallen out of its wolftail and glares at Hahn.</p><p>“Sokka, are you injured?” Chief Arnook asks.</p><p>“No,” says Sokka, “Just some bruises, I’ll be fine.”</p><p>“I mean that,” Chief Arnook gestures to Sokka’s chest.</p><p>Sokka looks down and sees that her wrap- around shirt has been pulled down and open and is showing off her binding. Sokka quickly pulls it closed again, her heart coming to her throat. “Oh that? No, it’s fine. It’s just something we Southern men do. You don’t do it up here? Strange! Amazing how different we are sometimes!”</p><p>“What are you hiding?” Hahn asks, as he steps forward and pulls open Sokka’s shirt, dragging it off her shoulders so she can’t pull it closed again so easily.</p><p>Anyone who was moving to stop him freezes as it becomes clear what the binding is. Despite doing her best to gain muscle, despite binding tight as she dares, there’s still a shape to them, to <em>her</em>, that is unmistakable without the carefully un-cinched waist of her clothes.</p><p>“You’re a girl!” Hahn’s desperate floundering away from her so extravagantly it would have earned an eyeroll if Sokka weren’t so terrified.</p><p>“I am a man!” Sokka insists. Now Hahn has released her shirt, she pulls it closed again. “I am a man of the Southern Water Tribe, and I have earned my place as warrior!”</p><p>Hahn frowns. “I guess there’s only one way to really find out.” He surges forward again, and Sokka tries to step away, but Olly’s grip is suddenly a vice around her arm keeping her in place.</p><p>Hahn grabs her crotch, squeezes, and sneers. “Nothing down there, huh?” He goes for her waistband and she grabs his wrist with her free hand.</p><p>She’s practically running on reflex, she’s so out of her depth.</p><p>“Better check it’s not just really small.” Hahn sticks his other hand down her pants.</p><p>Sokka is stopped from moving away by Gunna joining Olly and restraining her fully.</p><p>“No!” she barks desperately, with nothing else left to stop the roaming hand. “Get off me!” She struggles, but the men holding her are experienced warriors, and Hahn is stubborn, and no one else is stepping in. Not even Chief Arnook is saying anything, he’s <em>watching</em>.</p><p>Hahn pulls his hand back, triumphantly declaring, “Nothing! Is that what manhood is worth in the South?”</p><p>Anger, fear and humiliation are at war in Sokka. “I have proven myself!” she insists, though her voice is shrill with fear. “You d-<em>ow!</em>” She ducks her head away from the pain. Olly has roughly yanked her hair tie out. She looks at him and instinctively recoils: she’s never seen such a look of disgust aimed directly at her.</p><p>“Hahn, you have a mission to complete,” Chief Arnook solemnly reminds them all. “We will take this from here.” The look he gives Sokka is one of disappointment and… pity? “You!” he calls to a young warrior, “Find something suitable for her to wear.”</p><p>Sokka will not cry. She will. Not. Cry.</p><p>If her dad were here, if any of the men were here, they’d rally around her. They <em>know</em> she’s a man, they <em>made</em> her a man. (They’re not here, though, and they left her behind)</p><p>Arnook turns away. “Bring her,” he says.</p><p>Sokka’s shaking, but she doesn’t fight this.</p><p>---</p><p>They’re up on a balcony in the palace, Katara, Aang and Yue, trying to work out what they can do to be helpful. It’s slow going, but they finally come to the conclusion of spirits. It’s a pretty vague conclusion, but spirits are pretty vague beings, so it’ll all probably come together.</p><p>Then they hear the commotion, and it’s a commotion with Sokka’s voice.</p><p>“I can walk on my own!”</p><p>Even though that’s clearly true, Sokka is being held by two men on either side, and being pulled across the plaza. Her hair is down and she’s wearing a woman’s parka, though only one of her arms is actually in a sleeve.</p><p>“Oh no,” murmurs Katara. She makes worried eye contact with Aang before he’s gone over the railing to intervene.</p><p>With more concern for Yue than for the palace architecture, Katara follows with her waterbending.</p><p>“What’s going on here?” Aang asks, all concern and not wanting to think poorly of other people before they’ve been given a chance.</p><p>Well, Katara hasn’t got time for any of that. “What are you doing to my brother? Get your hands off him!”</p><p>“You can drop the act,” says one of the men holding Sokka. “And be grateful we’re the middle of a siege or we’d be having a word with Master Pakku about your part in all this.”</p><p>Katara meets Sokka’s eyes and she – no he, <em>he</em>, Katara can<em>not</em> slip up in this conversation – his cheeks are red with humiliation but he’s angry. It takes a lot to make Sokka really, truly angry, but this has done it. It makes Katara burn with her own anger in return. “What is wrong with you? This is how you treat allies?”</p><p>“This is how we treat liars and criminals,” replies the man.</p><p>“<em>Criminals</em>?” Katara shrieks, “My brother is helping you defend your home against the Fire Nation. My <em>brother</em> has trained alongside you-“ They have the nerve to look disgusted at that. “-to fight for your home!”</p><p>The other man holding Sokka, the older of the two, finally speaks up. “Is this what the Southern Tribe has come to? Letting girls to do the job of men?”</p><p>Incensed, Katara takes a breath in—</p><p>“Yes!” shouts Sokka, “The men are away <em>fighting a war</em> to defend our home, who else is there? You? We haven’t heard from our <em>sister tribe</em> in fifty years!”</p><p>“So you admit you’re a girl?”</p><p>By Sokka’s face, Katara can see that he didn’t mean to imply that. Katara steps up. “My brother is a man—a <em>warrior</em> of our Tribe!”</p><p>“Father!” Yue calls, breaking them out of the shouting match for a moment. “Father, you must stop this. Sokka, Katara and Aang came here as our friends, to help us.”</p><p>Chief Arnook sighs and runs a hand over Yue’s hair. “You have a kind heart, my daughter, but Sokka has lied to us all, she is a girl. She deceived us and desecrated the training grounds. I cannot overlook this… unnatural behaviour. And that she made us a party to it, unknowingly? it is the ultimate disrespect.”</p><p>“What do you know about respect?” Katara seethes, “You’ve been disrespecting the South’s ways ever since we got here.”</p><p>“Do not speak to the chief like that, girl,” says one of the men.</p><p>“You want to do something about it?” Katara asks, squaring up, drawing a whip of water from the ground.</p><p>“Stop this!” Aang shouts. Miraculously, they all do. Whether it’s because Aang’s the Avatar or because him shouting like that is so surprising, it’s hard to say. “We all want the same thing. We all want to stop the Fire Nation, we shouldn’t be wasting our energy fighting amongst ourselves.”</p><p>“We weren’t fighting amongst ourselves until you arrived,” says the younger man.</p><p>“We need to pull together,” Aang insists, “Put aside our differences,”</p><p>“Aang,” Sokka sighs, “You’re right, stop fighting, it’s fine.”</p><p>“<em>What,” </em>say Katara and Aang together. Aang continues, “No, I—"</p><p>Sokka meets Aang’s gaze, quieting him, and then Katara’s. “They don’t want my help, they won’t get my help.” He shrugs. “It’s their homes under attack, not mine. And you could all be doing something more useful with your time.”</p><p>Katara narrows her eyes, but Sokka is staring at her intently, despite his uncaring words. Katara, unfortunately, can’t read minds. She can only guess that he means for her to let him get taken away. It goes against everything in her to just let this happen, but Sokka is right, the Fire Nation is approaching and they need to deal with that. They don’t have time to try changing these stubborn minds. She lets the water fall and freeze back into the ground.</p><p>“Where are you taking him?” she asks. Because if they’re going to break him out, they’ll need to know where he is.</p><p>“Father,” Yue says again, putting her hand on the Chief’s arm.</p><p>Chief Arnook sighs. “She will be locked in your house, and guarded.” He nods to the two men holding Sokka, and they move off. Sokka goes willingly, though the men are still holding him tightly. Katara watches and breathes deeply, and only imagines sinking them both into the ice and washing them away.</p><p>She then turns to Chief Arnook, none of her anger dissipated. She points a finger at him. “When this is over, we’re going to have a proper talk,” she promises. “Come on Aang!” she calls before the Chief can reply, and she leads Aang away.</p><p>Once they are away from the plaza, Aang asks, “Where are we going?”</p><p>“I don’t know,” Katara fumes, “I just couldn’t look at him anymore. Can you believe what they’re doing? In the middle of battle! As if it’s even important.”</p><p>Aang nods, looking worried. “But we still have to help them.”</p><p>“Of course we do!” Katara cries.</p><p>“So, I’ll go contact the spirits and you can go get Sokka?” Aang suggests.</p><p>“Do you know how to contact the spirits?”</p><p>Aang’s face clearly says he doesn’t, “Well…”</p><p>“Katara! Aang!” Yue hurries to them. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t think—Well, I knew if… But I had hoped they wouldn’t find out.”</p><p>“You know?” Katara asks.</p><p>“Yes,” Yue nods earnestly, her eyes are glistening. “He told me right after you challenged Master Pakku.”</p><p>Aang makes a small sound of realisation. Katara glances at him, but there’s nothing more forthcoming.</p><p>“But you need to contact the spirits?” Yue pushes.</p><p>Katara looks at her sharply. “We <em>need</em> to get Sokka.”</p><p>“Yes, of course, we will.” Yue puts her hand on Katara’s arm. “I truly feel terrible for what my- my father has done to Sokka.” From anyone else, Katara would assume they were buttering her up, but Yue doesn’t look like she’s been insincere a day in her life. “But you must understand my people come first. Who can say what the Fire Nation plan to do with us if they succeed. You <em>must</em> contact the spirits.” There’s a hardness to Yue that Katara hasn’t seen before. She thinks she understands more of Sokka’s rambling about how great Yue is. Not all of it because Sokka’s rambling is very easy (and sometimes necessary) to tune out, but most of it came down to Yue being stronger than she thinks, and that’s starting to become clearer.</p><p>Reluctantly, Katara nods and agrees to Yue’s proposition.</p><p>Yue’s thankful smile brightens her face as she says, “I know a place that I think will help.”</p><p>“Alright,” says Katara, “You can take Aang there, and I’ll get Sokka.”</p><p>Yue thinks on it, the slightest mark of a frown between her eyebrows. “It would be risky.”</p><p>“I don’t think there’s a non-risky plan,” says Katara with a half-hearted attempt at an apologetic shrug.</p><p>Yue nods slowly, and then, “I want to do it.”</p><p>“You?” Katara asks, and regrets the way it makes Yue falter.</p><p>“The Northern Water Tribe has done your brother wrong, and I would like to be the one to right it. I understand if you do not trust me, but, Katara,” she places her hand on Katara’s arm again. “He is dear to me, and he has shown me so much.”</p><p>“We can go together,” Katara suggests.</p><p>“I need them to believe that I’m not just letting Sokka go free,” Yue counters, “If you’re with me, it will look like we’re trying to get Sokka out.”</p><p>Katara considers this plan. She can’t deny that Sokka would get a kick out of <em>Princess Yue</em> rescuing him. Though if Yue doesn’t manage it, then La can take them all. Katara will do it and she will not be kind about it. Right, that’s a plan <em>and </em>a back-up plan, that’s more than they usually have. “Alright, while we’re contacting spirits, you can get Sokka.”</p><p>“And weapons!” Yue says suddenly, “They’ll take his weapons, so we should get some for him.”</p><p>“Aang contacts spirits, you get Sokka and I’ll get weapons,” Katara suggests.</p><p>“They won’t let you get weapons, you’re a girl,” says Yue.</p><p>Katara doesn’t even get through a whole eyeroll before Aang says, “I’m fast! Tell me where they keep weapons, I’ll be back with some before you know it.”</p><p>“Training grounds,” says Yue, “By the smiths huts. Do you know it?”</p><p>“I think so!”</p><p>Yue looks worried by that but, well, “Aang’s done more with less,” Katara assures her. Aang nods reassuringly.</p><p>“Alright,” says Yue, “Go, and meet us by the side of the palace when you get back.” She points to the side that she means. “And I’ll show you to the Spirit Oasis.”</p><p>“Right!” says Aang and he’s gone in a flurry of snow.</p><p>Yue is shocked into silence.</p><p>“Yeah,” says Katara, “He’s fast. Come on, let’s go.” She turns away, but then stops herself and turns back. “Oh, and before I forget, Yue, if you take too long to bring Sokka back, I <em>will</em> be coming for him. I won’t let my brother stay locked up.”</p><p>Yue’s eyes widen as she nods. “Understood.”</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0009"><h2>9. Chapter 9</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>The Siege of the North, where the gaang's night gets EVEN BETTER.</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>I have got a new job! So I bashed this out before I have less free time again. Yes, this is me trying to write quickly.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>It’s easy to appear confident, but less so to feel confident.</p>
<p>Aang and Katara disappear through the door to the Spirit Oasis and Yue near sags as she closes the it behind them. They have everything they should need, everything Sokka should need when Yue releases her.</p>
<p>She feels awful, Sokka looked so terrible restrained by the warriors. And her face was swelling as if they had <em>beaten</em> her. Sokka was here to help and this was how she’d been repaid, Yue had never felt so ashamed of her father, dare she even think so ashamed of her <em>tribe</em>.</p>
<p>In her talks with Sokka it has been so hard to hear her struggles. It has been hard to hear how their sister tribe has been so reduced, and to know that they have never helped. It is been hard to hear how Sokka had to fight to become a warrior, and to know in the North she would still be fighting. It has been hard to be proud of her Tribe when Sokka has only been concerned with how their traditions are hurting Yue.</p>
<p>And to think of the bigger picture, she cannot believe her father has been foolish enough to harm the Southern Chief’s child, and a friend of the Avatar. If they successfully defend their homes from invasion, she will certainly be speaking to her father about he’s treated Sokka, and push him to make amends.</p>
<p>Yue takes a moment to breathe and gather herself. For her plan to work, she cannot show her displeasure. She must exude quiet strength and authority. It will be a challenge for everything her mother taught her, but nothing’s ever been so vital for her to get right as this.</p>
<p>Yue approaches the guest house that the Avatar and his companions had been given for their stay. Her features are schooled, her hands are tucked neatly into her sleeves, held demurely in front of her. The saving grace of this pose being that no one can see how hard your hands are gripping one another.</p>
<p>One guard is stationed outside, the younger one that had held Sokka captive. Thankfully not Gunna, the weapons master, it would be difficult to challenge his seniority. But this warrior, Oklu his name is, not too many years older than Yue, and he has earned his status through skill, not by birth. Hopefully, it will mean he is more intimidated by nobility, without the advantage of learning politics from the cradle.</p>
<p>Yue keeps her head raised as she walks. She can feel Oklu’s eyes on her but doesn’t acknowledge his presence until she is within a few paces of him.</p>
<p>“Warrior Oklu,” Yue greets with a small incline of her head.</p>
<p>“Princess Yue,” he says in reply with a deep bow. Deeper than necessary. Yue’s smile is almost genuine. He rises again. “Most people call me Olly.”</p>
<p>“Mm,” Yue replies, neither approving nor disapproving, to leave real space for him to doubt himself. “Oklu, My father the Chief has reconsidered his decision. The Southern Water Tribe girl is to come with me and you are to report to the wall and bolster the numbers there.”</p>
<p>Oklu shifts uncertainly. “With all due respect, Princess, I need to hear this from a warrior, or Chief Arnook himself.”</p>
<p>“With all due respect, Warrior,” Yue lets some irritation show through, “We are in the middle of a siege and there is only so much time before the attack begins again. If you wish to bother the Chief with the whereabouts of a single girl at this critical time because you did not believe the word of his daughter, then you are welcome to request that we waste precious time.”</p>
<p>Oklu dithers and Yue remains impassive. Oklu finally relents and says, “Yes, of course, Princess Yue, I didn’t mean to imply you were lying.”</p>
<p>“No offence taken,” says Yue, not daring to feel relief just yet. “These are difficult times for us all.”</p>
<p>Yue watches Oklu calmly until he jumps to it and unlocks the door of the house.</p>
<p>As Yue’s eyes adjust to the darkness inside the house, Sokka’s form becomes clear. She’s sitting on the floor on a bedroll, looking sullen.</p>
<p>Oklu walks in and Sokka jumps to her feet. Yue lingers in the doorway, unable to pull Sokka out of there like she wants to, so she watches their interactions closely.</p>
<p>Oklu grabs Sokka’s arm and pushes her towards the door. “The Chief’s being merciful,” he says, giving her an extra shove to keep her moving.</p>
<p>A bruise is becoming clear around Sokka’s eye and the swelling is still there. Other than annoyance, she’s not showing any emotion, and it’s strange to see on Sokka’s usually expressive face. They make eye contact, but neither of them show their thoughts. Sokka’s caught on quickly, or else she truly believes that Yue would be so cold.</p>
<p>But no, they know each other well enough. Sokka couldn’t possibly think that.</p>
<p>Sokka blinks as she steps out into the comparatively bright moonlight and looks around, taking exaggerated breaths of air.</p>
<p>“Alright, get moving,” Oklu gives her another push.</p>
<p>“Thank you, Warrior Oklu,” says Yue, “I will take her from here. You are needed at the wall.”</p>
<p>Oklu stops still. “Princess, that can’t be what your father meant. She is a… trained fighter.” He looks pained to admit that.</p>
<p>Sokka smirks at the floor.</p>
<p>“And what will she do if she overcomes me? Join the Fire Navy? Escape to the tundra where the blizzard has been raging for two days?” Yue asks, projecting her best motherly tone, the one that makes men feel like small boys being chased away from the cooking pot. “Time is of the essence, Warrior.”</p>
<p>“She is deceitful,” Oklu argues.</p>
<p>Yue allows her displeasure onto her face. “Believe me,” she looks directly at Oklu, “I understand the deceit. And I will be fine. But the Tribe will not if we do not stop the Fire Nation. Thank you for your service.” She turns away, a clear dismissal. “Sokka, follow.”</p>
<p>She hears Sokka ‘hmph’ and the crunch of the snow under her feet. She doesn’t look back until they have turned the corner and are out of sight.</p>
<p>She looks back at Sokka, slowing to let her catch up.</p>
<p>“Keep going, I don’t think he’s gone yet,” Sokka murmurs before she gets too close.</p>
<p>Yue takes her hand. “Then we should move.” She hoists her dress with her free hand and breaks into a run, pulling Sokka along behind her.</p>
<p>They turn more corners, Yue leading them a less direct and more confusing route, just in case. Until she stops in an archway, out of breath. Sokka follows and huddles in close. They look out into the pathway and hold their panting breaths, looking and listening for any unwanted followers. They hear nothing.</p>
<p>Sokka bursts into giggles. “Yue,” she says in awe, “Yue, that was brilliant!”</p>
<p>“Sokka,” says Yue. She gently touches Sokka’s face. “What did they do to you?”</p>
<p>“Oh, this?” Sokka points to her own face. “I started it.” She looks proud of herself. “Hahn deserved it.”</p>
<p>“You met—you <em>fought</em> Hahn?”</p>
<p>“Yeah,” Sokka preens. “He wasn’t giving you the respect you deserve.” She cups Yue’s face in both her hands and looks directly into her eyes. “You deserve better than him, Yue.”</p>
<p>“Sokka…” Yue pushes Sokka’s hands away, still unwilling to question the betrothal even though she is questioning other aspects of her father’s judgement. She doesn’t want to have this conversation again.</p>
<p>“I know you’ve made your decision, but you should know, without a doubt, that he is not good enough for you.”</p>
<p>Sokka says it so intensely that all Yue can reply with is, “Alright.”</p>
<p>Sokka nods, satisfied.</p>
<p>The silence following is still tense, so Yue says, “Your hair looks good down.” She sweeps a hand through it and lets it fall back down, long enough to reach Sokka’s chin. “It’s rugged.”</p>
<p>Sokka’s lips twist strangely. “Thanks,” she says.</p>
<p>“Did they do anything else to you? Are you hurt elsewhere?”</p>
<p>Sokka’s strange twist of lips smooths into a smile. “No, no I’m fine. They didn’t do anything. Just locked me up.”</p>
<p><em>Just</em>, there was no<em> just </em>about it. “Sokka, Sokka I’m so sorry.” Yue dares, and she wraps her arms around Sokka, pressing her face into her shoulder. “I’m so ashamed of what my father did to you, what my Tribe has done.”</p>
<p>Sokka’s arms come around her in return. “It’s not your fault. You’ve got me out.”</p>
<p>“No, no I need to do more,” Yue insists. “After all this I’ll insist that Father apologise. I will—You won’t have to forgive him, but he needs to see what he did is wrong. I’m so sorry.”</p>
<p>“I don’t blame you,” Sokka assures her and tightens her hold.</p>
<p>Yue pulls back enough to frame Sokka’s face with her hands. “I will fix this,” she says sternly.</p>
<p>Sokka smiles, her whole face softens. “Thanks, Yue.”</p>
<p>Unable to hold herself back, Yue dips in and kisses Sokka on the cheek before taking her hand again and leading her onward toward the Spirit Oasis. “Come on, we need to get to your sister before she decides to take things into her own hands.”</p>
<p>“I was halfway wondering if she was tied up somewhere, to be honest,” says Sokka, being gamely pulled along. They both have more of a spring in their step than the situation should, by all rights, warrant<strong>.</strong></p>
<p>
  <strong>---</strong>
</p>
<p>The Spirit Oasis is awe-inspiring.</p>
<p>Katara, however, is in no mood to be awed.</p>
<p>Has Yue taken too long? Should she go?</p>
<p>She should never have left it in Yue’s hands. Not that she doesn’t like Yue, but she needs to see that Sokka is okay. Trusting it to someone else is driving her mad.</p>
<p>“Katara, can you pace quieter?” asks Aang, “It’s really not helping.”</p>
<p>“Right,” says Katara, forcing herself into stillness. “Sorry.”</p>
<p>Aang sends her a little smile, because he’s sweet, and he knows. He’s worried about Sokka too, but he has to reach the spirits.</p>
<p>Katara can do her part to be quiet and help Aang meditate. For now, at least. Until Yue takes too long. Has she already taken too long? It feels like she’s taken too long.</p>
<p>The door to the Spirit Oasis opens and Katara calls water to her hands, just in case. Then Yue ducks in, and, “Sokka!” Katara runs as fast as her legs will carry her, and throws herself at her sister.</p>
<p>They grab each other and hug tightly. It’s a moment before Katara pulls back and gloves her hand in water to begin healing Sokka’s face.</p>
<p>“Hey Sokka!” calls Aang from where he’s sat next to the pool.</p>
<p>“Hey Aang!” Sokka waves back. Then at volume less likely to blow Katara’s ear drums, she says, “He meditating?”</p>
<p>“Yeah,” Katara replies as she applies water to Sokka’s face, finally putting the healing lessons to good use. “Trying to reach the spirit world.”</p>
<p>“Makes sense,” says Sokka with approval. She glances sideways at Yue. “Who knows you’re here?”</p>
<p>“No one,” Yue replies. “Father knows we three are together.” She gestures to herself, Katara and Aang, “But not where we are.”</p>
<p>“And how long until Olly realises he’s been tricked?” asks Sokka.</p>
<p>“Hopefully, he’ll get to the wall and find something more useful to do than chase you around.”</p>
<p>Katara snorts as she finishes healing Sokka’s face. “That’s giving him more credit than he deserves.”</p>
<p>“I have to have <em>some</em> faith in my people,” Yue replies, sounding more world-weary than Katara has ever heard her.</p>
<p>“Rather you than me,” Sokka mumbles.</p>
<p>Yue puts her hand on Sokka’s shoulder and they look at each other. Or more accurately gaze at each other. For just a little longer than is comfortable.</p>
<p>Huh. <em>Just friends</em>. Sure.</p>
<p>But she can poke Sokka about that later, right now there’s a battle, they need to protect Aang while he’s meditating. To do that, “Aang went and got you some weapons,” she tells Sokka. She leads her over to the wall where they’re leaning.</p>
<p>Sokka grabs them with enthusiasm: a few spears, a club, a machete and some knives. She examines and hefts them all, a smile on her face.</p>
<p>“He didn’t know what you’d like best so he got one of everything,” Katara relates Aang’s struggles. “He couldn’t find any boomerangs, though.”</p>
<p>“They don’t seem to use them much here,” Sokka says as she checks the sharpness of the blades (cutting her finger in the process, for goodness’ sake, just because Katara’s learnt how to heal, doesn’t mean Sokka can go around being even more of an idiot. She heals it, of course).</p>
<p>“And here.” Katara pulls the hair tie out of the end of her plait and hands it to Sokka.</p>
<p>Sokka takes it. Shocked at first, but then she smiles, meeting Katara’s look, and ties her hair back into its usual tail.</p>
<p>“I’ll get your things back to you,” Yue says.</p>
<p>“Thank you,” Sokka smiles, “Both of you. And Aang too.” She looks over at Aang and her eyes widen. She hefts the spear she’s holding and throws it towards Aang.</p>
<p>“Sokka! What are you—” Katara spins around to see where the spear went. “Zuko!”</p>
<p>The Prince of the Fire Nation is there, in the Spirit Oasis in the most guarded sanctum of the Northern Water Tribe, dragging a glowing Aang away. His getaway has been paused by the spear sticking out of the grass in front of him.</p>
<p>Sokka throws another one.</p>
<p>“Stop throwing spears at Aang!” shouts Katara as she breaks into a run back to the centre of the Oasis.</p>
<p>“Zuko won’t let them hit!” Sokka calls back, and sure enough, Zuko has batted the second spear away with a wave of fire.</p>
<p>“Not reassuring!” Katara informs her sister before turning her attention entirely to Zuko. She couldn’t think of a better person to practice her new skills on.</p>
<p>---</p>
<p>Sokka watches her little sister, who has got better – a <em>lot</em> better – since they last faced Zuko.</p>
<p>Using the ice and water that surrounds them, she forces Zuko away from Aang and Sokka darts in to pull him further back. She settles him back where he was meditating. He’s lying down, having been pulled out of his seat. It’s eerie, to see his skin glow and have no response to touch at all, but they have to trust that he’ll come back with… information or spirit powers or something. Otherwise she’s not sure what they’ll do.</p>
<p>She stays with Aang, a last defence if Zuko gets past Katara. With only one spear and no boomerang, she’s down to mostly up-close fighting, which… isn’t great against a firebender.</p>
<p>It doesn’t seem like it’ll be much of a worry, Katara is consistently driving Zuko back, trapping him, tripping him. Until finally, she forces him up against the icy cliffs with a continuous wave of water, finally freezing him up there. Zuko does not retaliate immediately, and Katara turns away to be closer to Aang.</p>
<p>“Katara, that was amazing!” Sokka tells her.</p>
<p>Katara grins. “I am, aren’t I?”</p>
<p>“I didn’t say <em>that</em>,” but it’s too late, Katara already looks too pleased with herself.</p>
<p>“Is Aang alright?” Katara asks, coming closer.</p>
<p>“I think so?” Sokka answers, “He’s still glowing, he doesn’t look… in pain.” Katara nods. Sokka raises her voice, “Yue, are you alright?”</p>
<p>Yue, still standing by the door, waves a hand, “Fine!” Then she gasps, “Katara!”</p>
<p>Before Katara can turn around, she’s knocked forward by a forceful wave of flame, and face first into the one wooden archway in the Oasis. She falls to the grass unconscious.</p>
<p>“Katara!” Sokka springs to her feet, spear gripped in one hand and machete in the other.</p>
<p>Zuko has melted his way out of the tower of ice and is stalking towards Sokka (and Aang). “Firebenders rise with the sun,” he informs her. Sure enough, dawn is peeking over the top of the cliffs. The ships outside the city wall will be starting on their new assault now, they need Aang to come back quickly.</p>
<p>“Stay back!” Sokka warns. Zuko looks terrible, more beaten up than Sokka was before Katara healed her.</p>
<p>He still isn’t intimidated by her, though. “As if a peasant like you could stop me.” He throws fire.</p>
<p>Sokka ducks, dodges, does her best to deflect the fire with her blade. She’s been training to fight for weeks now, and she’s stronger, but none of the training took into account fighting benders. Probably because the Northern Tribe haven’t bothered to fight in the war for decades.</p>
<p>They’re left doing this stupid dance, Sokka dodging, but never moving away from Aang long enough to give Zuko the chance to grab him. Zuko is unwilling to incinerate the completely defenceless Aang, so can’t use the full force of his bending, and hasn’t brought any other weapons. Sokka is proud to say she has at least improved enough that she’s not letting him snatch her weapons out of her hands.</p>
<p>It doesn’t take Zuko long to realise they’re at a standstill, and he picks a new approach. Never taking his eyes off Sokka, he steps over to Katara. “Hand over the Avatar and I won’t hurt your sister.”</p>
<p>Rage flares. “Get away from her!”</p>
<p>“Give me the Avatar,” Zuko restates. He holds two fingers up and ignites a small but hot-looking flame.</p>
<p>“Don’t you dare!”</p>
<p>Zuko crouches down beside Katara’s prone form and lowers his flaming fingers towards her.</p>
<p>Sokka can’t bear to watch fire get closer to her sister. With a yell, she charges at Zuko, who dodges the spear and grabs her by the wrist. He uses her momentum to guide her past him and kick her away, throwing a wave of fire after her.</p>
<p>Sokka stumbles away and ends her fall in a roll, letting the flames go over her head. Once she’s the right way up again, she pushes up and hurls herself at Zuko. It’s clearly faster than Zuko thought she’d recover, or else his injuries are worse than he’s letting on, but Zuko only just manages to keep the spear from piercing him. Sokka forgoes all finesse and tackles Zuko, her shoulder to his stomach.</p>
<p>Zuko goes down and they grapple on the floor. Sokka loses her weapons, but it doesn’t really matter because all she’s got to do is delay until Aang gets back, or Katara wakes up, and if she can just hold on and keep Zuko from being able to carry Aang awa—Is that smoke?</p>
<p>Oh yeah, that’s smoke.</p>
<p>And heat.</p>
<p>And, more to the point, FIRE.</p>
<p>Sokka jumps up off Zuko, backing away, and the flames follow. She yelps, spinning to find what’s on fire, but it spins with her and the prissy bastard Prince has <em>set her parka alight</em>.</p>
<p>Sokka struggles to throw it off in a panic. The issue is ultimately solved when she falls into the pond. She flails and gets her head above the waterline, parka tangled around her arms, but at least now extinguished. She struggles more, wet material clinging on, and it takes longer than it should to get both upright and fully extricated from her parka.</p>
<p>Once she can see what’s going on, panic sets in again.</p>
<p>“Put Aang down!” She’s managing to sound bold, but Yue has clearly never been taught how to hold a spear, it is shaking.</p>
<p>“Step aside,” says Zuko.</p>
<p>Yue holds her head high. “I will not let you take the Avatar.”</p>
<p>With one hand, Zuko snatches the spear from Yue’s grip and hits her over the head with the blunt end. Yue stumbles back with a cry, thankfully still upright and conscious, but it fuels Sokka’s next move.</p>
<p>Sokka pulls herself out of the pond and charges at Zuko again.</p>
<p>Zuko kicks out with fire and Sokka dives under it – oh hey, would you look at that, being soaking wet helps – and takes out Zuko’s other leg. Zuko goes down, manages not to crush Aang in the fall. Sokka wraps her legs around Zuko’s waist and manages to grab both of Zuko’s legs and hold tight. She needs to get Yue somewhere safe.</p>
<p>“Yue, go get Appa!” she shouts. Appa’s good to have on your side in a fight.</p>
<p>“Appa?” Yue replies.</p>
<p>“Yes, you remember how to fly him?”</p>
<p>“Yes, Yes! I’ll get Appa! Hold on!”</p>
<p>Sokka can only assume that Yue goes to get Appa because all of her energy is going into holding on to the writhing, kicking, punching Prince.</p>
<p>Zuko shouts in anger, letting out a breath of fire (still terrifying) “Just give it up, peasant!”</p>
<p>“Annoying isn’t it!” Sokka snaps back. The absolute cheek of <em>Zuko</em> being annoyed by persistence.</p>
<p>They continue rolling around in the grass. Sokka has no idea how long she’s managed to stall Zuko for, but this feels like the most effective thing for her skill level.</p>
<p>Until it stops being so effective anymore.</p>
<p>Zuko manages to get a leg free and kicks her in the face.</p>
<p>Pain blooms in the centre of Sokka’s face and black takes over her vision. Sound goes watery and limbs go rubbery, and trying to understand what’s going on becomes a gargantuan effort.</p>
<p>When reality comes back into focus, she’s lying on her side with her hands tied behind her back. Zuko has Aang over his shoulder and is heading up the path cut into the cliffside to the icy tundra above.</p>
<p>“Hey,” she croaks, then clears her throat. “Hey!” she tries again, “Hey Zuko! Come back here!”</p>
<p>Predictably, he does not.</p>
<p>Sokka starts shuffling towards the discarded machete – oh, Zuko tied her to the archway. Brilliant. “It’s blizzarding up there, you idiot!” She yells.</p>
<p>Nope, no reaction.</p>
<p>“Don’t you dare let Aang freeze!” Again, he just carries on up the path.</p>
<p>Sokka gives up on talking sense into Zuko, she should’ve known it would never work.  Instead, she continues to shuffle towards the machete and try to reach it with her feet. It doesn’t go too well.</p>
<p>Katara groans and shifts, at long last.</p>
<p>“Katara!” Sokka calls, “Katara, are you awake? Are you okay?”</p>
<p>“What?” says Katara faintly as she pushes up into a seat. “What, where’s…?” she looks around. “Aang?”</p>
<p>“Zuko’s taken him,” Sokka fills her in.</p>
<p>“Zuko!” She finally looks over at Sokka and sees her predicament. “Sokka!”</p>
<p>“Yeah, hi, can you untie me?” Sokka rolls over so her hands are towards Katara.</p>
<p>“Uh, yeah, what happened?” Katara starts working on the knots.</p>
<p>“Zuko fought you, knocked you out. Fought me, knocked me out and tied me up. He took Aang up and over the top of the cliff.”</p>
<p>“We have to go after him!”</p>
<p>The rope around Sokka’s wrists loosens and she shakes it off as she sits up. “I sent Yue to get Appa, she should be here soon if she didn’t get caught up on the way.”</p>
<p>“Can she do that?” Katara asks.</p>
<p>“She saw me fly Appa quite a lot,” Sokka says, “She should manage?”</p>
<p>Katara looks at Sokka.</p>
<p>Sokka looks at Katara.</p>
<p>Any further thoughts on that topic are interrupted by Appa’s familiar and incredibly welcome groan.</p>
<p>“Yue!” Sokka calls, “You did it!” She gets up and runs over.</p>
<p>Appa lands with another groan, and lowers his head so that Yue can slip safely onto the grass where Sokka catches and steadies her. Despite the circumstances, Yue is grinning, “I did it, Sokka!” she turns and throws herself into Appa’s fur, “Oh, Appa, you were wonderful, you did so well.”</p>
<p>Appa groans, pleased with himself.</p>
<p>“Alright, we need to go,” Katara hurries to the saddle, “Quick, before Zuko gets lost in the blizzard!” Sokka boosts Yue up into the saddle, and Katara pulls her the rest way up. “And you,” Katara says to Sokka, “You’re soaking wet, take that shirt off and have my parka.”</p>
<p>It’s a good idea, she’s far less likely to freeze with some dry clothes, but Sokka still blushes as she gets changed, even if Yue is looking politely elsewhere.</p>
<p>---</p>
<p>They catch up with Zuko pretty quickly, despite the driving snow, and Katara beats the snot out of him, because of the driving snow.</p>
<p>Shortly after they untie Aang, a bright light shoots from the Oasis and lands in his body. Aang wakes up, blinking, but impressively good at getting his bearings given everything that’s gone on while he’s been out.</p>
<p>He tells them the spirit of the moon and the ocean are in the Oasis and in danger. He also tells them they have to bring Zuko (the one that’s constantly trying to capture him) back to the Oasis with them. Sokka isn’t happy, but she ties Zuko up with the rope he tied her and Aang with, so that’s something. Then they head back to the Oasis before the Fire Nation can get there.</p>
<p>Appa lands fast and hard, no time to be gentle. There aren’t any soldiers, <em>yet</em>. Aang hops off Appa and runs to the pond. He sighs in relief to see the koi peacefully circling one another.</p>
<p>The rest of them (except Zuko) flow off Appa and gather.</p>
<p>“We need more warriors here,” says Sokka. “And we should get you somewhere safe,” she says to Yue. “If the Fire Nation are trying to come <em>here</em> then, I’m sorry, Yue, you’re brave, but—”</p>
<p>“No, I fully agree. If soldiers are coming here, I should be somewhere else.” She touches the red spot on her cheek. “Zuko already proved that.”</p>
<p>“You’re amazing to have stood up to him like tha—”</p>
<p>“More warriors, Sokka?” Katara interrupts, “Kind of a time limit here.”</p>
<p>“Right, yeah, good point.”</p>
<p>“You stay,” Yue tells Sokka and Katara, “In case I take too long. The spirits need as much protection as we can give.”</p>
<p>“Right, okay,” says Sokka, “I’ll see you to the door.”</p>
<p>“Sokka,” says Katara, “If the warriors say anything to you when they get here—”</p>
<p>“We’ll manage that when it happens,” Sokka interrupts.</p>
<p>Katara sighs, unhappy. But, like the warriors hopefully will, she leaves the discussion for a better time.</p>
<p>“Aang!” Sokka calls as they pass the pond. He looks up. “Can you and Katara make a wall? Something to slow their progress.”</p>
<p>“Sure!” Aang calls and he leaps over the pond to start doing just that.</p>
<p>Katara goes to join him, “We’ll leave a gap for you to get through!”</p>
<p>Sokka waves her off, turning her attention to Yue. “Run as fast as you can, alright?” she says, “And don’t take any chances if you see Fire Nation Soldiers.”</p>
<p>“And <em>you</em> be careful,” says Yue, worry creasing her brow. “We’ve got plans after all this, remember?”</p>
<p>“I couldn’t forget if I tried,” Sokka assures her.</p>
<p>Then the door bursts open and flames shoot into the Oasis.</p>
<p>Seems Hahn’s mission didn’t go well.</p>
<p>“Change of plan!” Sokka yelps and turns, pulling Yue by the hand back towards the ice wall that Katara has left a gap for them in.</p>
<p>Not that it matters. The force of fire shatters it quicker than Sokka had been hoping.</p>
<p>---</p>
<p>From there, the fight has not gone well. The soldiers that entered the Oasis are well trained, and Zhao, overconfident and arrogant though he is, is still a good firebender.</p>
<p>Sokka pulls Yue as far away from the fighting as possible and takes a defensive stance in front of her. Sokka’s only remaining weapons are the machete and one spear, which don’t do much against a troop of benders, but ‘fight to the last man standing’ and all.</p>
<p>Appa gets some good tail blasts in, and Aang and Katara do their absolute best, but the soldiers know what they’re doing. Even against a notoriously nimble airbender, they’re able to push and push up to the pond.</p>
<p>Horror truly strikes when Zhao, a maniacal grin on his face, pivots from his attack on Aang and brings his fire down across the spirit pond.</p>
<p>The world goes dark and Yue stumbles against Sokka’s back.</p>
<p>“Zhao!” calls a new but familiar voice. “What have you done?” It’s Zuko’s uncle.</p>
<p>“I’ve made history here today, General Iroh.” Zhao boasts. “You should be honoured to be witness this.”</p>
<p>Sokka’s eyes adjust to the new darkness of the moonless night. She can see Aang clutching his head, and Katara moving in ways that should be moving the water around her, but it isn’t.</p>
<p>“What did you do?!” she yells.</p>
<p>“No moon, no waterbending, little girl,” Zhao explains with a smirk the size of his face.</p>
<p>“No!” Katara denies, though all evidence points to it being the truth.</p>
<p>“You have destroyed the balance, Zhao. This will hurt the Fire Nation as much as any other!” Iroh shouts.</p>
<p>Zhao turns, that smirk growing and filling Sokka’s vision. “It’s my destiny!”</p>
<p>With a yell, Sokka launches her spear at him. Zhao sidesteps it, but it snags in his cloak and y’know, makes him look a bit stupid.</p>
<p>Zhao retaliates, but to everyone’s surprise, Iroh intervenes, unleashing a barrage of fire that lights up the night and makes Sokka glad he never joins in with Zuko’s fights. He defeats most of the soldiers embarrassingly easy, and the rest follow Zhao out of the Oasis, their job done.</p>
<p>“We could’ve used your help sooner,” says Sokka.</p>
<p>“I am sorry I did not realise Zhao’s intentions before it came to this,” says Iroh. He looks down at the white koi fish floating still in the water, the burn dulling the scales across its back.</p>
<p>Everyone gathers around, Yue hanging onto Sokka’s arm in a way that’s worrying.</p>
<p>Aang squares his shoulders, an uncharacteristic frown on his face, and steps onto the water. Before anyone has a chance to comment on that, the ocean spirit takes over, engulfing Aang and forming a massive glowing blue spirit monster. The embodiment of an angry ocean.</p>
<p>That’s terrifying.</p>
<p>Iroh kneels at the side of the pond and reverently picks up the body of the koi fish. Or the moon spirit. What was the moon spirit.</p>
<p>Yue leans heavily into Sokka’s side and Sokka puts an arm around her.</p>
<p>“What can we do?” asks Katara. “The moon… <em>Waterbending</em>.” She tries, again, to make the water move. With all they’ve been through together, Sokka doesn’t think she’s ever seen anything so like despair on her sister’s face.</p>
<p>Iroh bows his head a moment, then looks up, at Yue. “You. You carry some of the moon’s life within you.”</p>
<p>Yue inhales sharply, her eyes giving off a subtle light of their own now that Sokka is looking closely. “Yes, I do. The moon gave me life.” She frowns and seems to come to a decision. “Perhaps I can give it back,” Yue says as she stands.</p>
<p>Terror grips Sokka, and she holds Yue’s hand. Holds Yue back. “Yue, no, you don’t have to do this.”</p>
<p>“Sokka,” Yue turns back to look at her, “It’s my duty.”</p>
<p>“They don’t deserve you!” Sokka surges up, gripping that hand tightly.</p>
<p>“Sokka.”</p>
<p>“It’s too much to ask.” Sokka shakes her head. “They can’t, someone else will have to do it.” Out of everyone in the Northern Water Tribe, of all the people that live up here, why does it have to be <em>Yue</em>? She’s too good to have to give up her life like this, she always was.</p>
<p>“Sokka,” Yue looks over her shoulder, “Don’t we ask the warriors to willingly give up their lives?”</p>
<p>“Warriors don’t have to marry <em>Hahn!</em>”</p>
<p>Yue smiles sadly. “And now neither will I.”</p>
<p>Not. The. Point. “That doesn’t make this alright.” Sokka just wants Yue to understand that she is more than a bargaining chip. Of course, she’s selfish and primarily <em>doesn’t want Yue to die</em>, but she has to fight it. She can’t let someone else she loves go without fighting it.</p>
<p>“I choose it,” says Yue simply.</p>
<p>Sokka has no argument to that. She hates that she doesn’t. When Yue pulls her hand free from Sokka’s, Sokka lets her.</p>
<p>Yue goes to Iroh where he is holding the dead fish, and kneels next to him. Sokka watches, she can’t pull her eyes away. She hopes that it doesn’t work. She knows that it needs to.</p>
<p>Yue puts her hands on the koi. A quick glow of white and she falls back into Sokka’s arms, as if she’s fainted.</p>
<p>Sokka rips a glove off with her teeth and presses her hand to Yue’s neck. “She’s cold,” she says, the temperature a shock. Yue had been living, breathing a moment ago. Just a moment ago. Sokka can’t do anything but hold Yue tighter.</p>
<p>Iroh lets the koi back into the pond and Sokka watches it swim with the life taken from the body in her arms.</p>
<p>Her vision blurs. It’s not fair. It’s <em>not fair</em>. (A child’s refrain. But still. It’s not.)</p>
<p>Yue’s body becomes lighter. Sokka doesn’t understand, it’s not something possible. She wipes her eyes so she can see properly, but once she has the body is gone completely. As if Yue never existed. “No,” she says, lost, “No, come back.”</p>
<p>The pond glows, bright like a moon on Earth. The light comes together and draws up out of the water, forming an ethereal vision of Yue.</p>
<p>“I’m here, Sokka,” she says, her voice coming from afar and up close all at once.</p>
<p>Sokka crawls to the edge of the pond, to be as close as possible. For once in her life, she has no words or noises.</p>
<p>Yue approaches her and cups her face like she had so many times. But she lacks the weight of a hand, the heat, it’s so different but Sokka never wants to let go.</p>
<p>Yue leans down and down towards Sokka, and presses her lips to Sokka’s in a kiss.</p>
<p>For a moment Sokka doesn’t breathe. Then everything slots together and yes, <em>yes</em>, this is what she wants, to kiss and hold and hug Yue. She tries, holding Yue’s cold face and threading her fingers through Yue’s insubstantial hair. Every part of it tells her that Yue is already gone and out of her reach. But this is a gift and she will take it and she will <em>show</em> Yue that she meant every part of it. That Yue is more than a game piece to keep the nobility tied together, and she is more than the moon’s back-up.</p>
<p>It’s a lot to say with a kiss while she’s choking on tears. She thinks it fiercely, and stares into Yue’s eyes as Yue pulls away.</p>
<p>Yue smiles sadly and wipes her thumb across the tear tracks. “I will always be with you.”</p>
<p>She fades and leaves no trace but the lingering feeling in Sokka’s lips.</p>
<p>The moon reappears in the sky, full and bright, lighting the night sky once more.</p>
<p>Tears of sorrow turn to tears of anger.</p>
<p>Everything Sokka went through here, and the only bright point of this whole damned Tribe has <em>become the moon</em>. Far, far out of Sokka’s reach.</p>
<p>They’ll never visit each other after the war.</p>
<p>Everything they’d planned with their heads pressed together, hiding in the darkness of night.</p>
<p>She seethes, and she can’t sit here and do <em>nothing</em>. (There’s nothing she can do)</p>
<p>Sokka grabs her spear again and runs out of the Spirit Oasis, ignoring Katara’s calls. Outside the eerie blue glow of the ocean spirit has faded and Sokka charges through the streets towards the wall, where the Fire Nation must be, someone she can take her rage out on.</p>
<p>There isn’t a single soldier in sight, the only signs at first are a dropped pike or helmet, then their tanks, battered and beaten and wedged places they shouldn’t be, embedded in ice walls. Sokka keeps running.</p>
<p>The Northern Warriors are mostly on their knees or standing around doing nothing like they have for the <em>entire war</em>.</p>
<p>And <em>where</em> is the <em>enemy?</em></p>
<p>She’s at the great wall, it’s battered and broken, gaping holes in it, but there’s no one about who was responsible. With nothing else to do, she stands at the bottom of the wall and screams.</p>
<p>Aang floats down from the top and lands next to her, barely indenting the snow. “The Moon’s back,” he says, listless and tired. He sways on his feet.</p>
<p>“Yeah,” Sokka chokes out.</p>
<p>Aang looks at her with eyes that are seeing something else. “What’s wrong?” His voice is distant, as if the most bubbly and sincere boy she knows is having to force the care into it.</p>
<p>Sokka doesn’t know how to answer. And Aang is so careworn, barely staying upright, that Sokka doesn’t think it’ll do either of them good for her to spew the bile inside her. So she swallows it down.</p>
<p>She grabs Aang and pulls him into a crushing hug.</p>
<p>It takes a few long moments before he returns it, slowly bringing his arms up, and finally grabbing the back of her parka and holding tight. </p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>That's rough.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0010"><h2>10. Chapter 10</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>They leave the North Pole. At Last.</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>I am sorry for the long gap. I have started my new job and moved house, and it took me longer than I thought to get back into it.</p>
<p>I am also provisionally completing the fic here. I do have ideas for the rest of the series but I feel like the end of Book 1 is a good place to go on hold while I be apparently terrible at writing.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The aftermath of the battle is messy.</p>
<p>Even though most of the Fire Nation soldiers were cleanly swept away, there are still dead – not all of them disappeared into spiritual energy – and the damage to the Wall and nearby buildings is huge.</p>
<p>Sokka can hardly bring herself to care.</p>
<p>Aang is exhausted and has done who knows what to who knows how many Fire Nation soldiers. They deserved it, as far as Sokka is concerned, but Aang doesn’t think like that and Sokka can see it weighing on him. Sokka will look out for him because Sokka looks out for her own.</p>
<p>When she can.</p>
<p>The following days pass in snatches of things she doesn’t care enough to commit to memory, and things she won’t ever be able to forget. All jumbled and mixed and the only two certain things are Aang and Katara by her side.</p>
<p>But the men, <em>oh</em>, the men of the Northern Tribe. They don’t know how to treat her.</p>
<p>There’s a lot of angry shouting at first. <em>She should never have been let out, what is she doing with weapons? </em></p>
<p>Then it quickly becomes clear that their dead princess tricked Olly to get Sokka free, that Sokka was one of the few defenders of the Spirit Oasis. And sure, she <em>failed</em>, but the men didn’t even succeed enough to get there.</p>
<p>And Sokka is a girl – they’re not going back on that one – so the only people defending the spirits were two girls and a child Avatar. And Yue was fond of Sokka, enough that she would break their laws for her.</p>
<p>And the men are embarrassed, they are <em>shamed</em> and they don’t want to admit to it. It’s horrible and Sokka hates them, but she loves everything about their discomfort. Just her existence is enough to remind them of their shame, and they twist themselves up trying to make it right in their own heads. Some of them are clearly too thick to think of a better way than violence, and if Sokka were anyone else, she’d be scared. But she’s the close friend of the Avatar that merged with the spirit of the ocean and saved their pathetic lives. The moon spirit is fond of her. Any idiot that would dare harm her is quickly stopped by his more sensible friends.</p>
<p>The men do their best to ignore her, but they can’t even do that properly. They daren’t ignore the Avatar who so recently saved them, and Aang absolutely <em>insists</em> on having both Sokka and Katara with him. For someone who dislikes confrontation, he’s not dodging this issue at all. It gives Sokka hope for him as an Avatar.</p>
<p>It comes to a head – or the closest it will ever get – when the Chief speaks of his beloved daughter and how sad he is to have lost her. In amongst his neat and tidy speech, stripped of the mess of grief, he claims he’d had a vision of this day. Of his daughter becoming the moon. So he was expecting it.</p>
<p>Sokka scoffs, loudly enough for plenty of the room to hear. She didn’t even mean to make a noise, but she doesn’t regret it.</p>
<p>Eyes around the room are looking at her, narrowed and frowning. After a very loaded silence, one of the men breaks through the sombre and serious mood to defend his Chief. It’s one of the guys she rarely saw in the training grounds, she doesn’t know his name. “Know your place,” he tells her.</p>
<p>Katara bristles at her side, but it doesn’t deter the guy.</p>
<p>“He has lost his <em>daughter</em>. Show some respect.”</p>
<p>Sokka’s eyes roll of their own volition, and she’s alright with that move. “He married his daughter off to an idiot just to get peace from some pompous jackasses.” Pompous jackasses around the room frown harder. “He always knew she would become the moon, and <em>that’s</em> what he decided her life should be? Something to be passed around to make other people happy?”</p>
<p>“That is the duty of a good daughter,” says the guy who doesn’t know when to stop.</p>
<p>“Well it’s pretty fucking clear to me that none of you have ever had to be daughters!” Sokka yells. “Never had to- to beg the men in your life for the dignity of being taken seriously. Or spend day after day,” she flails an arm in the Chief’s direction, “Buttering up your dad so that he might just consider that you have a good idea.”</p>
<p>There are, of course, no daughters of the Northern Tribe in the room.</p>
<p>“You have no right to-“</p>
<p>“No,” says the Chief, holding up his hand and staring at Sokka with an expression so fragile that Sokka fancies she can see the cracks. “Let her speak.”</p>
<p>“<em>Him,</em>” says Sokka viciously. The Chief doesn’t correct himself, and Sokka isn’t prideful enough to give up the chance to speak with the Chief actually listening. “She was a person, she was beautiful and clever and brave. She didn’t know how to hold a spear, but still tried to stop the <em>Prince of the Fire Nation</em> with one when she had to.” Her glare should show just who she blames for Yue not knowing how to defend herself. “She wanted to see the outside world, she wanted to make a difference, be an envoy for the North and show the world all the good qualities she thought you had. She was so excited to make a life outside these walls when the war ended. She loved the North and she loved you. She tried to tell me you have courage even though all you’ve done is hide in your homes for a hundred years. She walked to her death willingly, to save you all, to keep your homes safe. A warrior’s death that none of you could <em>ever</em> hope to match.</p>
<p>“You treated her like a pawn in your,” She sputters for words briefly before deciding on, “Dick measuring contest you call politics, and she gave you nothing but devotion, loyalty and love. You aren’t worthy of any of it. But she gave it anyway.”</p>
<p>Sokka realises that tears are escaping her eyes and hauls herself in. She takes a deep breath and presses it down. They will <em>not</em> see her weakness or her cracks.</p>
<p>To her satisfaction, the Chief is crying too.</p>
<p>And everyone else has <em>no</em> idea what to do.</p>
<p>A few deep breaths and the Chief breaks the silence, “Thank you for your thoughts, Sokka of the Southern Water Tribe.”</p>
<p>Sokka doesn’t grace him with a reply, or acknowledgement. The meeting moves on to more pressing matters of seeing to the dead that still have bodies, and caring for the injured. Sokka stands silently throughout it all, a clear sore point to everyone there.</p>
<p>Once they are out and away from prying eyes, not even Sokka can pretend that she’s fine. She can’t turn down the long, tight hug that Katara and Aang give her.</p>
<p>---</p>
<p>Sokka doesn’t train with the men anymore. They only gave her weapons back because Aang insisted. Well, the Northern Men compromised by giving the weapons to Aang. Aang of course immediately handed them to Sokka, to everyone else’s displeasure.</p>
<p>So, while Aang and Katara train their waterbending, Sokka has nothing to do and no one to talk to. Even throwing her boomerang in full view of the warriors loses its shine after a week or so.</p>
<p>She’ll hold on for as long as Katara and Aang, but she’s getting bored and restless. She’s mended all the clothes that need it. Her weapons, cooking knives, every blade is in danger of being sharpened into nothingness. She’s patched up Appa’s saddle, stocked their food, and packed everything they don’t need ready for travel. She’s written letters to nearly everyone in the village, just in case there’s a chance to get them to the South Pole.</p>
<p>She’s not trying to rush Aang and Katara, even if Katara does give her a look when they get back and everything but the bedrolls is hopefully packed away. She just wants to be gone from here. She wants to be a long way away from here, as soon as possible.</p>
<p>---</p>
<p>When they leave, it’s strangely sudden, despite how ready Sokka is for it. Pakku declares Katara master waterbender enough to teach Aang and shortly after, Chief Arnook announces that warriors and benders will be going South to help rebuild.</p>
<p>If he’s expecting thanks, he doesn’t get any.</p>
<p>They’re escorted out the same way they came in, and nearly as excited to leave as they were to arrive.</p>
<p>Aboard a Water Tribe catamaran, ready to climb onto Appa and finally part ways, they say their goodbyes to Pakku. Katara and Aang have grown fond of him, and even Sokka will admit that he seems to have changed his mind. Sokka can’t work up that kind of trust for him, and has settled at not actively hating him.</p>
<p>Pakku calls them forward one by one, he gives Katara a vial of water from the Spirit Oasis, and Katara thanks him, looking so pleased with herself. To Aang, he gives a box of waterbending scrolls and reminds him to listen to Katara, his new master. He takes them with reverence</p>
<p>Sokka steps up, as if to receive something. Pakku looks at her like he doesn’t really know what to do with her. That’s fine, she didn’t want anything. She pulls out a pack of letters, tied together with string, and holds it out towards him. “Would you give these to the village when you get there?”</p>
<p>Pakku tilts his head at her. “Do I look like your errand boy?”</p>
<p>Sokka is <em>so</em> tired of Northern men. She rolls her eyes and turns towards someone else, a complete stranger standing by. “Would you take this and deliver it to the village? You can give it to Gran-Gran, she’ll know who they’re all for.”</p>
<p>The boy looks surprised to have been noticed. Sokka doesn’t recognise him. “Oh, I, uh.” He takes the bundle of letters. “I’ll make sure to find Gran-Gran.”</p>
<p>“She’ll be the oldest one there,” Sokka explains.</p>
<p>“I didn’t mean—” starts Pakku.</p>
<p>“Then you shouldn’t have said it,” Sokka snaps back.</p>
<p>The boy glances nervously between the two of them and flips the letters in his hands. “I just wanted to say thank you.”</p>
<p>Sokka looks back at him, confused. “To me?”</p>
<p>“Yeah,” the boy nods.</p>
<p>“What for?”</p>
<p>“My sister, she…” The boy drifts off, staring at the sea. Then he steps in close. “Is it true women can marry who they like in the South?” He speaks quietly, as if it’s something they’re not supposed to talk about.</p>
<p>“Yeah?” says Sokka, normal volume, “There’s not exactly much choice, though.”</p>
<p>“Doesn’t matter.” The boy looks pleased as punch. “Thank you. I’ve never seen someone make father so angry as you have. Thank you.”</p>
<p>“You’re… welcome?” says Sokka.</p>
<p>“I’ll make sure Gran-Gran gets these,” he waves the letters in the air and darts away to elsewhere in the boat.</p>
<p>Sokka is confused. She shares a brief moment of confusion with Pakku. Then she remembers why she’d spoken to the boy in the first place and frowns at Pakku before turning away from him and towards Appa.</p>
<p>Katara is already in the saddle, she offers her hand and pulls Sokka up. “Everything alright?” she asks.</p>
<p>“Yeah,” Sokka lies. She shakes her head and amends her answer. “It will be.” She hopes.</p>
<p>---</p>
<p>“Sokka,” says Katara softly. Aang is steering Appa and Katara uses the opportunity to talk to Sokka. She’s been so quiet since Princess Yue died, and Katara only feels she can mention it now the North Pole is at their back.</p>
<p>“Mm-hm?” Sokka replies. It’s forceful, bright. You could almost believe she wasn’t the angriest Katara had ever seen her. When their Mom died Sokka was angry, but she was scared too, they both were. Sokka’s always been a bit scared ever since. Usually it comes out in stupid theories and paranoia, and she’d rather get angry than be overwhelmed by fear.</p>
<p>But now Sokka’s anger has a different flavour, and it’s all aimed at the Northern Water Tribe.</p>
<p>Katara reaches out and takes Sokka’s hand. “You know you can talk to me, right?” Katara continues softly.</p>
<p>Sokka scoffs. “Yeah, of course.” She looks out at the unending ocean and predictably, doesn’t continue.</p>
<p>Katara sits with her, waits for her to carry on. Much like the hunting Sokka is always going on about, sometimes you just need patience.</p>
<p>Sokka flips her boomerang over and over in her hands. “It’s just…” she eventually forces out, “She kissed me, right?”</p>
<p>“Right,” Katara agrees. It’s not remotely what she expected, but she’s not going to shoot it down.</p>
<p>“Like a <em>kiss</em> kiss,” Sokka expands, “Like a boyfriend and girlfriend kiss.”</p>
<p>Katara nods, she hadn’t wanted to listen in on their final conversation, but Yue was so <em>bright</em>. She was so close and Katara couldn’t look away from the moon clinging to the Earth for a moment to be near her sister. “Uh-huh,” she prompts, not wanting Sokka to lapse into her silence again.</p>
<p>“But she was a spirit.” Sokka frowns down at her hands.</p>
<p>“Right.”</p>
<p>“So what does that mean?” Sokka throws a hand in the air, and looking at Katara like she might have any good answer to that minefield of a question.</p>
<p>Katara starts slowly, “Probably that she liked you—Likes you.”</p>
<p>“But how?” Sokka explodes with dramatic gestures. “Like a boyfriend and girlfriend do? She knew I’m a girl, she’d known for ages.”</p>
<p>“Maybe,” Katara suggests delicately, “She liked you like a girlfriend likes their girlfriend,”</p>
<p>Sokka’s eyes dart towards Katara then away. “That’s not a thing,” she dismisses. “Must be some spirit weirdness, right?”</p>
<p>“Well, it might be,” Katara allows, “But what’s not a thing? What do you mean?”</p>
<p>“Two girls together, romantically.” The boomerang in her hands turns over and over. “That can’t be a thing. But I guess spirits aren’t really girls anymore.”</p>
<p>“Sokka,” Katara puts a hand on her sister’s arm, peering at her, and trying to peel back the layers of <em>what the heck</em> with her eyes alone. “What about Ahka and Nantuk?”</p>
<p>Sokka frowns. “What about them?”</p>
<p>Katara can’t quite believe she has to explain this. “They’ve been together for years.” Sokka doesn’t appear to know what she’s talking about. “Living together and everything?”</p>
<p>“Living in the same tent helps with childcare and cooking and stuff,” Sokka explains easily.</p>
<p>Katara doesn’t know if she should be exasperated or just sorry that Sokka had managed to be so oblivious for years. “If that was the only reason, we’d all live in the same tent.”</p>
<p>Sokka shakes her head with her best older sibling knows best energy. “Any tent big enough for that would blow down at the first gale. And there’s no way we could build an igloo big enough.” Because she’s thought about it, of course she has.</p>
<p>“They love each other, Sokka!” Katara tells her, “They’re <em>in love</em> with each other,” she adds before Sokka can misunderstand, “Romantically.” In case Sokka was going to continue being oblivious. “Like girlfriends.”</p>
<p>That shuts Sokka up for a while. “But what about their husbands?”</p>
<p>Katara sighs. “I don’t know, Sokka, but they’re together. Have you really never noticed how affectionate they are?”</p>
<p>“Well yeah but… that’s just… them, isn’t it?” She seems to realise how stupid she sounds as she says it.</p>
<p>Katara watches her, not wanting to disturb the gentle realisations flickering across Sokka’s face.</p>
<p>“They’re really together?” Sokka asks.</p>
<p>“Yes.”</p>
<p>“Honestly?”</p>
<p>“Yes!”</p>
<p>“Do you know why? Or How?”</p>
<p>Katara stares at her sister for a moment. “What? What kind of question is that?”</p>
<p>“You didn’t ask them?” Sokka looks legitimately surprised, which feels vaguely insulting.</p>
<p>“No!”</p>
<p>“Really? <em>You</em> weren’t nosy?”</p>
<p>“Gran-Gran told me not to question other people’s happiness,” says Katara primly. A perfect copy of Gran-Gran’s tone two years ago.</p>
<p>“Huh.” Sokka gazes out to the ocean again for a moment. “Ever since they moved in together?”</p>
<p>“Ever since the men left, yes,” Katara confirms.</p>
<p>“Wow.”</p>
<p>Katara doesn’t know which part Sokka is finding amazing, but, “Yeah.”</p>
<p>The amazement on Sokka’s face turns and crumples into a whole new slew of questions. “So then— Am I really that dense? Did Yue… did Yue <em>know</em>? Did she mean it like that? Do I like girls? Maybe it was just Yue, maybe it was something… spirity, or… maybe she didn’t really feel that way and I—I’m just—“</p>
<p>“Woah, woah Sokka,” Katara catches Sokka’s flailing arms and gently brings them to her lap. “Calm down.”</p>
<p>“How can I not know this, Katara?” Sokka asks her, “I thought I like boys! Do I like boys?”</p>
<p>Trying to exude calm while also feeling incredibly out of her depth, Katara says, “I… don’t know. Do you?”</p>
<p>“How should I know?” She looks lost. “I apparently liked Yue and never noticed!”</p>
<p>“You knew you liked her,” says Katara, “You snuck out to be with her often enough.”</p>
<p>That simple fact seems to calm Sokka a little. “I guess… I’ve never done that for a boy. Maybe I don’t like them? Is it even possible to like both?”</p>
<p>“As a matter of fact,” says Aang, turning to face them on Appa’s head. “It is! The monks taught me that love shouldn’t be restricted. You can love boys, or girls, or both, or neither.” Aang shrugs with a carefree smile on his face. “Whatever feels like you, Sokka.”</p>
<p>“I don’t know what feels like me,” Sokka groans, she pulls her hands out of Katara’s grip and drops her head into them. “I’m so confused.”</p>
<p>“That’s okay too, Sokka, “says Aang, “You don’t have to know everything right now.”</p>
<p>“I <em>like</em> knowing things,” Sokka bemoans.</p>
<p>“Maybe you can try to find out,” suggests Katara. “Try, I don’t know,” Oh, this is uncomfortable, “Finding a boy you might like and talking to them like you might want to… kiss him?”</p>
<p>A flash of pain across Sokka’s face. This is probably a primary definition of <em>too soon</em>.</p>
<p>“Or not,” Katara backpedals, “You don’t have to know right now, like Aang said.”</p>
<p>“No, it’s…” Sokka sighs. “Either way we’ll need to go somewhere the men aren’t idiots before I can find anything out.”</p>
<p>Katara pulls her sister into a hug and sincerely, <em>sincerely</em> hopes that’s where they’re going.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Sex education with the resident 12-year-old.</p>
<p>Is it a coincidence that the only one who's been taught this stuff was raised in culture untouched by a 100 year war? No, no it is not.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
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